From the First Strike to the Final Overtone – Gong Workshop with Mike Tamburo

It began with a few gentle, tentative strikes. Then more and more overtones emerged until it wasn’t just the gongs resonating, but our entire amphitheatre.

On 24 August, Mike Tamburo joined us in Treppendorf for a sold-out Gong Essentials workshop in the afternoon, followed by a concert in the evening.

The workshop quickly moved from theory to hands-on practice. With our amphitheatre filled with gongs and people eager to explore their sound, Mike demonstrated just how much of a difference the smallest details can make. How does the sound change when the mallet strikes just a few centimetres closer to the edge? What happens when you use less force? And how can you build intensity without simply playing louder?

Mike introduced the participants to mallet control, striking techniques, crescendos and diminuendos, tremolos, damping techniques and friction mallets. It may all sound rather technical at first, but once you stand in front of a gong, the importance of these details becomes immediately clear. Even the slightest adjustment can produce entirely different timbres and overtones.

Then it was time to experiment, sometimes delicate and almost weightless, sometimes with considerably more energy. The process was always the same: listen closely, make small adjustments and try again.

In the evening, it was Mike’s turn to take his place behind the instruments. Using gongs, wind gongs, melodic gongs, singing bowls and other metal percussion instruments, he gradually filled the amphitheatre with layer upon layer of sound. Workshop participant Nikolas recorded the concert, so anyone who couldn’t make it to Treppendorf can listen to it here:

Thank you to Mike Tamburo for immersing us in sounds that seemed to disappear almost as soon as they emerged, lingered in the room, blended with new frequencies and could be felt in the body as much as they could be heard. It was a wonderful workshop and a breathtaking concert.