Ben Miller Interview on How Musical Structure Transforms Sound Baths

Ben Miller is the founder of Zen with Ben and the Zen with Ben Sound Academy, where he teaches sound bath facilitation through musicianship, practical music theory and intentional sound design. Drawing on a lifelong background in music and a degree in Music Production, he developed the Zen with Ben Method to make concepts such as rhythm, harmony, intervals, dynamics and structure practical and accessible, even for people with no previous musical training.

In this interview, Ben explains why he believes sound baths should be approached as music, how musical understanding can give intuition something to work with, and why the participant’s experience should remain at the centre of every musical decision.

Ben Miller, Sound Bath Educator

What inspired you to approach sound bath facilitation through musical structure rather than relying on intuition alone?

Music is a form of expression, and to me, a sound bath is fundamentally a form of live ambient music. Yet when I entered the sound bath world, much of the teaching I encountered focused on intention, energy or symbolic associations, with relatively little emphasis on the musical relationships between the sounds being created.

I’ve since worked with many practitioners who tell me they were taught how to strike and circle their bowls but were never given a basic understanding of rhythm, intervals, chords or how to structure a musical journey. Some had even learned their bowls primarily through chakra associations rather than being taught the actual note names and the musical relationships between them.

I don’t think intuition is a bad thing, but intuition needs something to draw upon. Without musical foundations, “playing intuitively” can easily become guesswork.

That’s why the Zen with Ben Method deliberately teaches structure: opening sequences, harmonic pairings, major and minor journeys, how to gradually build layers, and how to reduce them again towards resolution.

Those structures aren’t there to restrict creativity. They give practitioners a musical framework from which creativity can develop.

Structure creates freedom. Musical understanding gives intuition something to work with.

What is the Zen with Ben Method, and what makes it different from more conventional approaches to sound bath training?

The Zen with Ben Method teaches facilitators how to create musical journeys using sound bath instruments. That is what makes it different.

Much of the conventional sound bath training I’ve encountered is built around chakras, energy, intention or other metaphysical frameworks. I don’t teach any of those things. I teach the instruments as musical instruments.

We use harmony, rhythm, dynamics, pacing, texture and structure to understand how to build a soundscape, how to introduce sounds, layer them, create movement, tension and release, and gradually bring the journey back towards resolution.

Ultimately, I’m teaching people how to use the instruments they have in front of them to create a coherent musical experience that supports relaxation.

How has your background in music production, performance and soundscape design shaped the way you developed the Zen with Ben Method?

I tend to approach a sound bath much more like a composer or sound designer than someone simply playing a collection of instruments.

My background in music production taught me to think about the whole sonic picture: harmony, dynamics, frequency range, timbre, texture, space and how different sounds interact.

The room itself also becomes part of the instrument. A crystal bowl behaves differently in a small studio than it does in a large church or hall. The natural reverberation changes how long sounds remain present, how much density the space can carry and how quickly you need to introduce the next sound.

I’m also interested in acoustic phenomena such as beating between closely tuned tones and how those textures can be used intentionally rather than appearing accidentally.

Ultimately, I think in terms of soundscape design. I’m constantly asking what is already present, what the next sound contributes, whether the sound needs more density or less, and how each musical decision affects the journey as a whole.

What musical principle do you think has the biggest impact on the quality of a sound bath but is often overlooked?

If I had to choose one, I would say harmony.

I often hear people say that crystal bowls and Tibetan or Himalayan bowls shouldn’t be played together. My response is always: why not?

Saying you can’t combine those instruments is a little like saying you can’t combine a trumpet with a violin. Of course you can. What matters is understanding the musical relationship between the sounds. The notes, tuning, register, dynamics and timbre all affect how those instruments sit together.

A pair of bowls might create a broad, spacious interval, while another combination might create much stronger tension. Neither is automatically right or wrong, but you should understand what you are introducing into the soundscape.

Rhythm and pacing are equally important. Even a sound bath without an obvious beat still has rhythm. How quickly sounds arrive, how long they bloom and how much space you allow between changes all influence the participant’s experience.

Musical knowledge turns those decisions from accident into intention.

Why do you think the sound bath industry would benefit from a stronger understanding of rhythm, harmony and musical structure?

Currently, it’s possible to train in sound bath facilitation while receiving very little or no musical education, and that feels like a significant gap to me.

I regularly hear from people who have completed training but then go on to say that they were not taught anything about notes, chords, intervals or rhythm. Once you know how to strike and circle a bowl, those musical relationships become the next step, an incredibly important step at that!

There are also many different spiritual traditions and modern interpretations associated with singing bowls, so I prefer not to use fixed chakra or frequency mappings as the musical basis for my teaching. Instead, I ask, "What can we actually hear?"

Music is extraordinarily powerful in shaping expectation, tension, emotion and atmosphere. A facilitator may be working with people arriving stressed, grieving, exhausted or simply needing space from everyday life. Understanding dynamics, pacing, harmony and dissonance therefore matters.

For me, the industry doesn’t need less meaning. It needs more musical understanding alongside the meaning people already bring to the experience.

Do people need a musical background to understand the Zen with Ben Method? How do you make concepts such as intervals, chords and rhythm practical and accessible to beginners?

Absolutely not. The Method is designed to start from the ground up.

We begin with something very simple: the seven notes of the C major scale. Once somebody knows the order, C, D, E, F, G, A, B, we can start exploring the relationships between them.

Count from C to E and you have a third. C to G gives you a fifth. Instead of making students memorise abstract theory, we immediately play those combinations and listen to how their character changes.

We do the same with rhythm. A metronome at 60 bpm gives students a simple framework for practising activation, sustain and decay while developing an internal sense of pacing.

Then we gradually move into chords and harmonic journeys. My approach is very practical: learn it, hear it, play it, repeat it.

Eventually, that knowledge becomes internalised, and the student can become more intuitive. I often say that musical understanding gives intuition something to work with. Without any underlying framework, intuition can easily become guesswork.

How do you balance a grounded, evidence-aware approach with the personal or spiritual experiences that many people associate with sound baths?

I don’t think a grounded approach and a personal or spiritual experience have to be in conflict.

Music can influence emotion, attention, memory and our sense of calm or tension. A sound bath can sit alongside other forms of support and give somebody valuable space for rest, reflection, processing or simply a break from what is happening in their life.

Where I become cautious is when that becomes a promise of healing. Someone going through grief, illness, anxiety or another challenging period may understandably be searching for relief, and I think practitioners have a responsibility to be honest about what we can and cannot promise.

A crystal singing bowl is not, by itself, a treatment. My role is to create a carefully considered musical environment that can support relaxation and reflection.

I’m interested in what we can actually explore through sound: rhythm, sustained tones, drones, harmony, dynamics, acoustic beating and musical structure.

Understanding those things doesn’t take away the personal experience. For me, it gives us a more responsible foundation from which to create it.

How do you help students move away from memorised sequences and develop the confidence to make their own intentional musical decisions?

I give students the tools and the ingredients, but I don’t want every person leaving my training to create the same sound bath.

We might begin with structured exercises: learning the C major scale, practising intervals, building the seven fundamental chords, using a metronome and following simple harmonic journeys.

That structure is important because it develops coordination and gives the ear something to recognise. But the destination is freedom.

Once somebody understands which notes form a chord, which intervals tend to create more tension or openness, how decay can carry one sound into another and how dynamics affect density, they can start designing their own journeys.

The room will change. The instruments will change. The participants will change. The facilitator will also bring their own personality and creativity.

One of the principles behind the Method is that structure creates freedom. The aim is not memorisation. It is to build enough musical understanding that practitioners can respond creatively while still understanding the consequences of the choices they make.

If every sound bath facilitator took one idea from the Zen with Ben Method, what would you want it to be?

I would want them to remember that sound bathing is music.

The bowls, gongs and other instruments do not exist separately from musical principles simply because they are being used in a wellbeing setting.

Rhythm matters. Harmony matters. Dynamics matter. Timbre matters. Structure matters. Most importantly, those choices affect the person listening.

You don’t need a music degree, perfect pitch or years of instrumental training. But even a basic understanding of the musical relationships behind the sounds you create can completely change the way you facilitate. For me, intention is important, but intention needs tools.

If you understand why you are pairing particular notes, why you are building or reducing intensity, why you are creating tension and when you are resolving it, then your intuition has something meaningful to draw upon.

That is really the heart of the Zen with Ben Method, "Understand the sound. Understand the relationship. Then make the choice intentionally."

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