From burnout to sound healer — a personal journey through music, frequencies, and vibration
Can music heal? I found an answer to this question at the age of 6 — not through rational thought, but through pure experience. Every morning before school and right after the school day, I would sit at my keyboard. Not because my parents or teachers forced me to, but simply because I felt better afterwards. All the stress of the school day would vanish, my mood would lift, and I was filled with nothing but joy — because making music was even more fun than listening to it.
When Sounds Reduce Stress
Today I know there is more to it. Every year, new studies appear showing that music and sound have positive effects on people. Whether it’s nature sounds lowering our stress hormone cortisol, special frequencies like binaural beats influencing our brain waves, or classical music positively affecting both human memory performance and the growth of plants.
Music as Part of Human History
Music has been part of human life since the beginning of time. Archaeological findings show that people have been using musical instruments for at least 40,000 years — whether for entertainment, rituals, or the healing of body and mind. In ancient Greece, music was already being used to improve digestion, treat mental problems, and address sleep disorders. Pythagoras discovered that musical intervals can be calculated through mathematical ratios and are likewise found within the human body and mind. He is said to have reconnected people with their divine nature through so-called ‘soul adjustments.’ Even in the Sumerian-Akkadian era, approximately 4,200 years ago, music was used not merely as entertainment but as a therapeutic instrument. People were brought into altered states of consciousness through specific chants and drumming rhythms.
Frequencies, Brain Waves, and Modern Neuroscience
Today, modern neuroscience divides brain activity into different frequency ranges, each associated with specific states of consciousness. For example, 4 Hz corresponds to the delta state — a state of deep meditation, trance, and dreaming. This is precisely the state that shamans sought to achieve through drumming at a certain speed — for instance, 4 Hz through 4 beats per second.
Isochronic Tones and Binaural Beats
This phenomenon — known as isochronic tones and binaural beats — is what music producers use today to guide people into altered states of consciousness through music, and it was what introduced me, a few years ago as a music producer and pianist, to the world of sound healing. I first encountered this technology in 2020, when I was looking for tools to better cope with my stressful work life. Working at one of the largest recording studios and online academies in Germany was a lot of fun, but it also cost a lot of energy. My thoughts would circle around client matters before falling asleep, I found it hard to switch off in the evenings, and I noticed that I was becoming more exhausted week by week. When I suddenly ended up in bed with digestive problems and doctors told me it was a psychosomatic issue, I knew I had to change something. I began exploring relaxation techniques, started meditating, and experimented with hypnosis apps. That’s where they first appeared: binaural sounds.
First Experiences with Binaural Sounds
Binaural sounds are expressed in frequencies that actually fall well below the human hearing range of 20 Hz — such as 4 Hz for sleep frequencies. As a music producer who thought he knew most of what there was to know about how music works and is made, I was confused. How was I supposed to hear these sounds, and above all, how were these frequencies supposed to be played back through standard headphones or speakers whose playback range doesn’t go below 20 Hz?
Nevertheless, I gave it a chance. Within just a few minutes, I felt my entire body relax, my thoughts slow down, and I was able to sink deeper and deeper. This sparked my curiosity to find out how these frequencies work from a technical perspective, while at the same time conducting my own daily experiments to gradually guide my body and mind out of this burnout. I gathered more and more evidence that simply by listening to the frequency sessions, I became more focused, more relaxed, and ultimately, within just a few weeks, was able to fall asleep again without any problems.
The Fascination of the Handpan
Things became even more interesting when I sat in front of this new instrument — the so-called handpan — for the first time. Invented in Switzerland in the early 2000s and since further developed by many manufacturers worldwide, the handpan, with its magical sound, is growing ever more popular. Made up of two lens-shaped steel pans, it combines the sound of the steel pan drum with the Indian clay pot instrument known as the ghatam, producing a metallic yet warm, hypnotic, and meditative tone. Even though I didn’t know exactly what it was that drew me so strongly to this instrument, I felt that I had to learn to play it. So in 2022 I bought my first handpan and began documenting my journey with the instrument online.
The Path to Sound Healer
When I started producing videos with it, I noticed that my body would enter a state of deep relaxation within a very short time whenever I played the handpan or simply heard its sound while editing a video — without any targeted frequencies or other technologies. I also became aware that worries, problems, and uncertainties would dissolve into thin air during a session. It was as though I could ask the instrument a question, and over the course of the session I would receive a groundbreaking answer that simply made everything easier. Once again, an entirely new world opened up for me. So in 2024 I began my training as a sound healer in London, and learned that what I had experienced with the handpan has been practiced for centuries using traditional sound healing instruments such as singing bowls, gongs, and shamanic instruments — and has been increasingly researched scientifically over the past 20 years.
Sound Healing in Scientific Focus
Many studies confirm that sound massages have stress-relieving and relaxing effects. Significant differences in stress levels could be measured after just a single session. Sleep quality, anxiety, and pain levels were also significantly reduced.
Cell culture experiments using Peter Hess therapy singing bowls in 2010 showed that sound can influence humans at the cellular level. The number of living cells after sound exposure was significantly higher than without sound. There are also indications that sound can improve the cardiovascular system and psychological wellbeing.
Vibrations in Water and in the Body
An adult human body consists of approximately 50–65% water — and in infants the figure is even 70–80%. The speed of sound in water is approximately 4.5 times higher than in air. Sound waves from singing bowls, gongs, handpans, and similar instruments have a direct influence on this water within our bodies, producing an effect comparable to an inner massage at the cellular level. Sound thus acts on the human being on all four levels simultaneously: cellular, mechanical/vibrational, psychophysiological, and energetic.
When water is exposed to sound and illuminated, the effect of sound on matter can be beautifully illustrated visually. Cymatics water images impressively show how each individual frequency creates its own unique pattern of nodes and oscillation lines in water. The waves overlap to form standing interference patterns that, depending on the sounds, arrange themselves into aesthetically ordered structures — or, in the case of disharmonic sounds, into more chaotic ones.
Resonance as a Key Principle
Every body, whether macroscopic or microscopic, has one or more natural resonant frequencies depending on its physical properties. Strike a tuning fork and hold a second tuning fork of the same frequency next to it, and the second one will begin to vibrate without being struck manually — through what is known as resonance. This happens within our bodies on every level. Every structure in the body — bones, organs, tissue, cells — vibrates at a specific natural frequency. Music is nothing other than a complex pattern of frequencies, and through its vibration it can trigger resonances throughout the entire body — right down to the cellular level.
Emotions and Memories Through Music
Music also acts on the brain in many ways. Various areas are engaged simultaneously, and even the reward system is activated when we listen to certain music. We get goosebumps at our favourite song, we remember a holiday from ten years ago when we hear a song from that time, we feel emotions like sadness, anger, joy, and relaxation with an intensity we no longer encounter in everyday life, or we start dancing wildly or swaying our bodies when we are at our favourite concert.
Music as a Companion Through Life
In my life, music has been a companion on my journey from the very beginning. Even before my birth I was surrounded by music, as my mother intuitively listened to the same CD again and again. Today, scientific studies show that classical music can calm the foetal heart rate and support the development of the nervous system. It strengthens cognitive abilities and fosters a stronger connection between the two hemispheres of the brain. It relaxes the mother and promotes a positive mood, which is transferred directly to the child.
Conclusion
Through both the good times and the challenging ones, music is for me like an anchor on the open sea. Whenever heavy emotions arise, music gives me a safe space to express and process them. Whenever there was something to celebrate, it amplifies the joy tenfold. Whenever the body falls out of balance and longs for rest, music helps me return to my inner stillness. That is precisely why I continue to make music to this day, and why I give other people the tools to transform both themselves and others with the power of music, sound, and vibration. As inventor Nikola Tesla once said: ‘If you want to find the secrets of the universe, think in terms of energy, frequency, and vibration.’ He believed that everything in the universe is connected through energy, frequency, and vibration — music allows us to re-member this secret from within.
References:
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Rauscher, F.H., Shaw, G.L. & Ky, K.N. (1993). “Music and spatial task performance.” Nature, 365, 611. / Lange-Kuettner, C. & Rohloff, S. (2022). “The Mozart Effect on Short-Term Memory.” London Metropolitan University. / Vieira, M. et al. (2025). “Impact of Classical Music Playing on Plant Growth.” ResearchGate. / Singh, T.C. (1962). Experiments on the effect of music on plant growth. Annamalai University, India.
Goldsby, T.L. et al. (2017). “Effects of Singing Bowl Sound Meditation on Mood, Tension, and Well-being: An Observational Study.” Journal of Evidence-Based Complementary & Alternative Medicine, 22(3), 401–406. / Liu, Y. et al. (2025). “Effects of Tibetan Singing Bowl Intervention on Psychological and Physiological Health in Adults: A Systematic Review.” Healthcare, 13(16), 2002. doi: 10.3390/healthcare13162002
Pabst, M.A. (2010). “Zellen und Klang.” Study conducted 2009 at the Medical University of Graz on the effects of Peter Hess® therapy singing bowls on cell cultures. Published by the Peter Hess Institut. Full research overview: www.peter-hess-institut.de/forschungsprojekte
Walter, N. & Hinterberger, T. (2022). “Neurophysiological Effects of a Singing Bowl Massage.” Medicina, 58(5), 594. doi: 10.3390/medicina58050594
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