Immersive Sound Experiences in Sonoma County

Sound can be a powerful tool to enhance or alter our moods. Sound can amplify our emotional state, intensify experiences and even heal. Sonoma County offers a variety of unique sound experiences, both in the artistic and healing sphere. The common theme for these experiences is that they are a mere enhancement of the already beautiful, natural soundtrack of Wine Country.

What Is a Sound Bath?

This ancient practice is truly a testament to the power of sound. A sound bath is a meditative experience where participants are “bathed” in sound waves. These waves are produced by various sources, including healing instruments such as gongs, singing bowls, percussion, chimes, rattles, tuning forks, and even the human voice itself. A sound bath can be incredibly relaxing, but also at times an intense experience; you might feel discomfort in certain places in your body (often old injuries) as the sound waves move through and release energy. Mentally, the sound waves can also lead you on a powerful journey, and you will often feel a great clarity evolving within the following few days. For the best sound bath experiences in Wine Country, try the following.

Singing Bowl Healing Studio

Singing Bowl Healing Studio, located in Santa Rosa, is a sound-wellness studio for the mind and spirit.

Take a sound journey surrounded by crystals, and absorb the soothing tones of Tibetan singing bowls in a positive and loving environment, to radiate your energy emotionally and physically. Reach a deeper sense of peace of mind with a combination of sound and visualizations to shift energy within. Singing Bowl Healing Studio offers meditative sound journeys inside the studio, and outdoors in the meditation garden. They offer sessions for individuals and small groups. The studio can accommodate up to 4 guests at a time, while the garden location is limited to 1-2 guests.

Have the Sound Bath Come to You

Vinita Laroia brings her beautiful, calming energy and sound bowls to you. Whether it’s your home, your airbnb or out in nature, she can provide an intimate, relaxing, yet powerful experience. Vinita uses a large 40-inch gong, chimes, rattles, shamanic drum, crystal bowls and Tibetan sound bowls.

She also does occasional public sound healing events around Sonoma County. For more information and contact details, visit her website.

Medlock Ames Immersive Sound Experience

If you are looking for something completely unique to add to your wine-tasting weekend, Medlock Ames launched an immersive sound experience for their guests. Visitors can get a deeper look at the winery’s organic-farming and land-preservation practices, and a large piece of interactive art onsite, developed by local composer and sound artist Hugh Livingston, is a 90-minute experience that includes a self-guided audio tour exploring sights and sounds across the 340-acre Bell Mountain Ranch. You will explore the vines, native oak woodlands, olive groves and gardens, followed by a guided tasting of six current release wines, paired with local, organic cheeses.

The Sound and Sculpture Garden at the Sonoma County Museum

This immersive art experience in the Evert and Norma Person Sound & Sculpture Garden, is fun for both kids and grown-ups. This is another sound art installation by the talented Hugh Livingston, and consists of computer software, which generates soundscapes in real-time, varying constantly throughout the day. The idea is that it ebbs and flows with sonic energy, just like the Sonoma winds. The software distributes the snippets of sound through 16 speakers, creating different kinds of movement energy in alternation. It’s intended to invoke behaviors in the garden space: Sometimes a meditative experience like smelling a single rose; sometimes strolling, following a bird that flies down the path ahead.

Three programs are heard in randomized alternation throughout the day. One involves short rhythmic cells that intersect and cross-pollinate across the garden. All of the sounds were recorded underwater in the Russian River.

The second program is described as a sort of sonic Haiku: The computer chooses either 5 or 7 sounds and presents them all at once as a single poetic gesture. Each of the 16 speakers has its own little verse. The nature sounds were recorded along the river.

The third program moves more into the melodic realm, consisting of instrumental (and some avian) gestures. It is described like a garden set for an opera, where the audience can roam through, following the individual voices of each character in the drama, or resting in one place to hear the voices that happen by.

Did You Know that Sonoma County Has Its Own Soundtrack?

“Sonoma Sound” is the official soundtrack created by local Grammy-recognized songwriter Cliff Goldmacher. You can learn more about the project here; where the full soundtrack and a behind-the-scenes look is available to enjoy.