Where do gongs originally come from?

Traditionally, gongs come from Indonesia, from where they reached China, they have also been produced in Europe since the post-war period. The art of therapeutic work with sound has seduced creative instrument makers to completely new sound qualities and forms, which today are formed in great mastery in manufactories with a lot of handwork and fine feeling.

Gongs and tubular gongs from feeltone

We have gongs from Wuhan in China, the cradle of gongs. Traditional Chao Gongs - also called Tam Tam and the Wind Gongs also called Feng Gongs are the two tonal as well as optical counterparts. The material of the gongs is a mixture of different metals, similar to the Tibetan singing bowls. The metals are brought together to glow and then poured into a mold and when cooling, driven, compacted, hammered and the different materials combine sometimes more and sometimes less. The feng gong is completely turned with an iron after cooling so that the black slag disappears, thus the gong becomes quite thin. It has no rim and shines in the light like a golden sun. Due to the rimless shape, the entire disc is affordable and appears explosive, expressive and rich in overtones to a strong noise, which, however, also soon perishes.

In contrast, the Tam Tam is given a rim, similar to a drum frame and this is also its task, to give the vibrating interior of the gong the stability and the frame to vibrate. Accordingly, the metal membrane inside also vibrates longer, the sound leads more inward and a rumbling moo is heard. The sound resembles a slowly sung boooooiiiing. The dance gongs from Sona Sounds, our neighbors in Pulow, on the other hand, are rolled and driven from the homogeneous nickel silver, from the construction like the TamTams with bent edge, all dance gongs are tuned to the same tone with the same quality, which is ideal in the interaction.

Similar sound sensation, only a completely different construction method can be found in the tube gongs and sound tubes. Here, high-quality brass is used (not to be compared with the aluminum otherwise used for sound tubes) elaborately polished by hand, which creates a larger surface area with the material and precisely tuned for overtone purity. True masterpieces, all pitches are possible in almost all constellations for indoor and outdoor use. Small and medium with stand, the giant tubes with wall mounts, but there are also pyramids, sound stele and sound temple. A completely new dimension of sound perception and sound experience.

For the Chinese gongs we have gong stands in the program, which is a simple, timeless storage, with a touch of Japanese design.