Join Billy Zanski at Skinny Beats Sound Shop in Asheville, North Carolina as he explores sound healing and meditation with Saraz Handpans, Crystal Bowls and Gongs.
Learn more about Sound Healing, Meditation, and Therapy with Handpans.
Filmed by Asheville Film & Video
Video Transcript:
Well, my name is Billy Zanski. I came to Asheville in 2004 and opened this shop, Skinny Beats. Skinny beats is downtown in Asheville on Eagle Street.
You know, you can talk about sound meditation, sound immersion, sound bath or you could just say music, you know, different types of
music. So I might be doing a session and 15 minutes into it I started playing handpan and something changes. You know, there’s an energy and a good peacefulness is part of how I connect with the handpan…. a certain really relaxing melodic kind of angelic energy.
So I’m definitely enjoying having Saraz Handpans here. It’s a world man. It’s a way a lot of people relate to the sound of the Saraz. You know, a lot of people can understand what energy that is. It’s an ancient sort of energy that’s like creating this dimension of a mixture of things, you
know. So that sort of versatility versus like I’ll play my drum and it’s just a very certain thing. But I can actually create several different feelings with the handpan and it is very percussive.
After I’ve been doing this for over 10 years, I’m starting to try new approaches with how does a melody and repetition start to transition and create this movement. So musical modes and all these things…. like I’m not really educated in that at all and so I’m learning by experience.
Certain melodic patterns are going to really affect people a certain way and me too. So if I enjoy a certain sound or a certain progression then I can get myself more calm and into it and sort of forget about that I’m trying to help people get to a place and that’s really important. It really starts with me and I can’t get too worried about anybody else because I just need to be in my little musical world. So if I have a certain soundscape or a melody, then I can feel that presence and it’s almost like it’s like your angel on your shoulder telling you like “yeah we’re
here, this is where your friends are, we’re gonna help you create this thing” and all of a sudden you are transported.
As soon as I got my hands on the Saraz, it was like this is a big part of the sound meditation. It creates such a shift and such and impact in people’s experience and in my experience that without it there it’s like you are missing something. It’s amazing how often the question after a
sound meditation is about the hanpan, or about can I get one, or about how are you playing it, what notes are those, and all those things.
