Teachers and Bodyworkers
Yoga and meditation teachers bringing sound into a room they already hold. Bodyworkers adding it to what they offer.
What a Sound Practitioner Is, and How to Become One
A sound practitioner holds space with sound, for a room of people or for one person at a time.
What a Sound Practitioner Does
For a group, that means leading a sound meditation from start to finish. For one person, it means sitting with them and holding a private session.
Either way, the person listening to the sound is the one doing the work. The sound gives their attention something to rest on that is not their own thinking, and this allows the mind to settle into a different way of perceiving the moment. A Sound Practitioner keeps the conditions right for this to happen, then gets out of the way.
Practices with sound encourage and train active, attentive listening, not just hearing, which develops awareness and insight. Hamid calls it sound meditation because you are participating rather than receiving.
By calling ourselves Sound Practitioners, Sound Guides, Sound Facilitators or even Sound Therapists, we are empowering those with whom we work to know that they are participants and not merely recipients.
The Sound Practitioner Training manual
What a Practitioner Needs to Know
History and theory first, then harmonics and overtones, then hours of playing.
The instruments are gongs, crystal and Himalayan bowls, bells, chimes, frame and hand drums, rattles, rain sticks, ocean drums, shruti box, Native American style flute, and your voice.
Then the work itself: conducting a one to one sound session, and holding a session for a group. Teachers of yoga and meditation spend part of the training working on how sound fits a class they already hold.
You do not need to read music and you do not need to sing well. There is no audition and no prerequisite. Everything starts from the beginning.
“In order for any participant in a Sound Meditation to receive a benefit, they must understand how to listen.”
Who Trains as One
You do not need to be a musician.
Anybody Drawn to Sound
People with no intention of teaching anybody, who want to know what they are doing when they sit down in front of a gong.
How to Become a Sound Practitioner
It begins with a training, and most of what comes after is going out and doing it: practicing, refining, listening, learning to hold a room.
Begin
The Online Sound Course
The whole of the Sound Practitioner Training, Level I, at your own pace and in your own place. Over 20 hours in fourteen modules, the training manual to keep, and $298, paid once.
Deepen
Sound Practitioner Training, Level I
Thirty two hours in person across two weekends, in a small group.
Continue
Advanced Level II, or Sound Mentorship
Forty hours for practitioners already working with sound: two weekends in person, four integration calls after them, and a practicum you design. Or work one to one with Hamid in Sound Mentorship, shaped around you.
Do You Get a Certificate?
Yes. Finish the online course and its assessment and you get Sound Practitioner Level I certification.
The online course gives Sound Practitioner Level I certification. It also carries 20 hours of Yoga Alliance continuing education, with a certificate of its own when you pass the written evaluation.
Level I and Level II in person each give a certificate of completion, and Yoga Alliance continuing education hours.
What Others Call It
Many schools would call this a sound healing training. Hamid does not use the term sound healing, because the term is unclear. It is still the name most people know, and what he teaches is how to do this work with care and intelligence.
Before you pay for a training, ask what it calls this work, and why.
“I would want it to spend at least ten minutes discussing why the term is problematic.”
Hamid Jabbar
Begin with the Online Course
$298, once. Take it in a weekend or take a year.
