For me, this was completely natural. My background was in Chinese medicine and acupuncture. I knew the points, their locations and their applications. So when tuning forks entered my practice, they initially appeared in the same place where I had previously used a needle.
Point – stimulus – response.
And it worked.
I want to make this clear because I am not rejecting the point-based use of tuning forks today. A tuning fork placed against the body produces mechanical vibrations that are transmitted into the tissues. The contact itself, the pressure and the vibration constitute a real physical stimulus.
A tuning fork can therefore be used for point stimulation, similarly to other methods that use mechanical stimulation of specific areas of the body.
Over time, however, another question emerged:
If a tuning fork can act as a local stimulus, does that mean this is where its potential ends?
For me, this question marked the beginning of a much longer journey.
The beginning of learning often looks very similar.
Headache – which point?
Insomnia – which point?
Knee pain – which point?
Stomach problem – which point?
Open many textbooks on acupuncture, acupressure or various reflex-based methods and you will find a similar way of organizing information: a problem and a corresponding point or set of points.
It is a very convenient model.
It gives us a specific tool and a sense of security. If I know where the right point is, I know what to do.
But over time, the question “where?” was no longer enough for me.
Another question appeared:
“Why here?”
And then an even more important one:
“What exactly am I trying to change in this organism?”
That is an entirely different way of thinking.
You can know many points commonly used for headaches and still not understand why this particular person has a headache.
You can know the points used for insomnia and still not understand why this particular person cannot sleep.
You can also use a technique that produces a rapid reduction in symptoms.
And then it becomes very easy to say one word:
“It works.”
But what does that actually mean?
Imagine someone with hip pain rated eight on a ten-point scale.
We perform a particular intervention.
A few minutes later, we ask again.
The pain is now three.
Something has clearly changed. From the perspective of the person in pain, that change may be extremely important.
But for me, this is precisely the point at which the questions do not end.
They begin.
What will happen in an hour?
What will happen this evening?
Tomorrow?
A week from now?
Have we influenced the mechanism maintaining the problem, or have we primarily changed the current perception of pain?
Will the effect persist?
Will the same intervention produce a similar response the next time?
We do not know the answers simply because someone says after three minutes, “It feels better.”
An immediate response and long-term regulation are not the same thing.
Recently, I have been looking with considerable interest at the Balance Method, an acupuncture approach particularly associated with Dr Richard Tan.
One of its characteristic features is the possibility of assessing the response very quickly.
Pain before treatment.
Intervention.
Movement again.
Pain reassessed.
This way of working has clear practical value. It allows us to see almost immediately whether an intervention has affected the symptom.
At the same time, it makes me think about something much broader.
We live in a world that rewards speed.
We want pain to disappear quickly. We want our energy back quickly. We want to improve our appearance quickly. We want to see results quickly.
There is nothing inherently wrong with a rapid effect. If someone is suffering, reducing that suffering has value in itself.
The problem begins when the speed of an effect is treated as evidence that the underlying problem has been resolved.
These are two different things.
That is why I am increasingly interested not only in the question:
“Did it work?”
but also:
“What happened afterwards?”
My work with tuning forks has also changed over the years.
At first, I used more points.
There was more intervention.
More possibilities that I wanted to use.
This is a natural stage of learning. When we know several approaches that seem appropriate for a particular situation, there is a temptation to use all of them.
This point fits.
So does this one.
And this one is recommended for a similar problem.
Perhaps we should add one more?
Over time, I began to reach the opposite conclusion.
The more I understand, the less I need.
Not because minimalism itself has therapeutic properties.
The reason is much simpler.
If I apply ten different stimuli and something changes, it becomes very difficult to know what actually happened.
If, on the other hand, I make one carefully considered intervention and then observe the response, I have an opportunity to learn something.
That is why one of the fundamental principles I have developed within Dźwiękopunktura® is:
less is more.
But “less” does not mean random.
Quite the opposite.
The less I want to do, the better I need to understand why I am choosing this particular intervention.
This is where another stage in my thinking began.
A tuning fork produces vibrations, but it is also an instrument with a specific frequency.
This statement requires considerable caution.
It does not mean that a particular number of hertz “heals the liver,” another frequency “corresponds to the kidneys,” another “opens a chakra,” and yet another “repairs DNA.”
I have spoken many times about the problems with such simplifications.
A number expressed in hertz is not, in itself, a diagnosis or a therapy.
But when a second sound appears, something else appears with it.
A relationship between sounds.
An interval.
And over time, this relationship became far more interesting to me than a single frequency.
Imagine a safe protected by the following code:
4 – 7 – 2 – 9.
The number 7 really is part of the code.
It is correct.
But on its own, it will not open the safe.
Moreover, even if I know all four digits but enter them in a different order:
7 – 2 – 9 – 4,
the safe will remain locked.
So what matters is not only the individual elements.
What matters is their relationship and their sequence.
This analogy illustrates quite well how I currently think about interval-based work.
I am not claiming that the body literally “reads” intervals as though they were the combination to a safe. We do not have scientific evidence that would justify such a statement.
I treat this as a working hypothesis and a model that helps me organize my observations.
So I ask:
Does only the individual stimulus matter?
Or does the relationship between two sounds also matter?
Does the order in which they are applied matter?
The location?
The state of the person at the time of the intervention?
And above all – how does the body respond?
For me, this is the fundamental difference between thinking in terms of a “magic frequency” and thinking in terms of intervals.
I do not ask:
“What does this frequency do?”
I ask:
“What do I observe when I combine it with another sound, in a particular relationship, at a particular location and in a particular sequence?”
I do not assign therapeutic properties to a single number.
I am interested in the configuration.
The relationship.
The sequence.
The context.
And the response.
Of course, this makes the work more complex.
You can no longer simply open a table and find the answer:
“Problem X – frequency Y.”
You have to think.
And above all, you have to observe.
The longer I work with Chinese medicine, the more I appreciate its maps – and the less I feel the need to treat those maps as reality itself.
We have channels.
Points.
The Five Phases.
The Six Layers.
Extraordinary Vessels.
Zang-Fu relationships.
It is an extraordinarily elaborate system for organizing observations.
But it is still a system.
A map.
Imagine driving with satellite navigation.
The GPS tells you to continue straight ahead.
But you look through the windscreen and see that the road is impassable.
What do you do?
You do not continue straight ahead simply because the screen told you to.
The map is there to help you navigate the terrain. It is not there to replace your observation of the terrain.
This is also how I understand therapeutic work.
The system is the map. The person is the territory.
If the body's response does not agree with my assumption, I have no intention of convincing the body that my theory was correct.
The theory is what needs to be reconsidered.
Perhaps this is where the greatest change in my way of working has taken place.
In the past, I was primarily focused on doing.
Today, I am increasingly interested in observing.
I do something.
And I wait.
I do not automatically add another intervention simply because it appears in a protocol.
I want to see the response.
If there is a response – that is information.
If there is no response – that is also information.
If something happens that I did not expect – perhaps that is the most valuable information of all.
In this way, therapy stops being the execution of a recipe.
It becomes a decision-making process:
What do I see?
How do I understand it?
What do I want to change?
Which stimulus do I choose?
What happened?
And what does that tell me about the next step?
In the world of sound therapy, it is particularly easy to fall into another trap.
We conduct a session.
The person rests.
They listen to sounds.
Afterwards we ask:
“How do you feel?”
“Better.”
And it becomes very easy to conclude:
“Sound X caused effect Y.”
From the perspective of rigorous investigation, however, this is precisely where a long list of questions should begin.
What caused the change?
The frequency?
The sound level?
The rhythm?
The vibration?
The music?
An hour of rest?
Reduced environmental stimulation?
The participant's expectations?
The interaction with the practitioner?
Or perhaps a combination of many of these factors?
These questions are not intended to invalidate a person's experience.
They are intended to establish what that experience actually provides evidence for.
That is a crucial distinction.
This is a good example of a problem that appears in discussions of sound therapy research.
If we study a complex intervention in which a participant listens to particular sounds or music, or takes part in a session involving various instruments, and afterwards we observe a change in well-being or physiological parameters, we may be able to say something about the intervention that was actually studied.
We cannot automatically isolate one component of that intervention and conclude:
“This particular frequency caused the effect.”
To answer that question, we would need a study designed to distinguish the influence of the frequency we are interested in from the other components of the intervention.
This distinction is extremely important.
Because this is precisely where statements such as:
“Science has proven that 528 Hz does X”
can arise.
When the original source is examined, it may turn out that the study demonstrated something far more limited.
Somewhere between the actual result and the internet claim, several very important steps in reasoning have disappeared.
When it comes to the way I use planetary tuning-fork intervals within Dźwiękopunktura®, the answer is simple:
at present, we do not have robust scientific evidence demonstrating that particular intervals produce specific therapeutic effects in the human body.
I have my own observations accumulated over many years.
I see recurring responses.
On the basis of these observations, I have developed a particular way of working.
I formulate hypotheses.
I test them.
I modify what I do.
But clinical observation – even observation accumulated over many years – is not the same thing as evidence obtained through controlled research.
I see no reason to blur that boundary.
Quite the opposite.
That boundary allows curiosity to remain alive.
In the world of therapy, one word is extraordinarily attractive:
“We know.”
We know that this frequency does this.
We know that this point does that.
We know that this interval is responsible for something else.
A ready-made answer creates a sense of security.
A table removes the need to make a decision.
A protocol removes the need to observe.
After more than twenty years of working with tuning forks, I feel less and less need to create such certainties.
I am far more interested in questions.
Why am I choosing this?
What am I trying to achieve?
What actually changed?
How long did the change last?
What happened afterwards?
Should the next session look the same?
Or is the body's response already pointing in a different direction?
When I look at my journey today, I do not reject its beginnings.
They were necessary.
At first, the tuning fork was primarily a tool for stimulating a point.
Later, I became interested in the relationship between two sounds.
Then their sequence.
The place of application.
The purpose.
And eventually, the body's response became increasingly important.
And something apparently paradoxical happened.
The more possibilities I began to see, the less I wanted to do during a single session.
Fewer points.
Fewer intervals.
Less intervention for the sake of intervention.
More decision-making.
More silence between stimuli.
More observation.
So I do not consider point-based tuning-fork work to be a mistake.
A tuning fork can be used as a local stimulus.
It can be applied to a point.
It can also produce a rapid, perceptible change.
But let us not confuse the tool with the entire therapeutic process.
Let us not confuse an immediate response with resolution of the problem.
And let us not confuse observation with evidence for a mechanism of action.
For me, the greatest potential of tuning forks began to emerge when I stopped asking only:
“Where should I place it?”
and began asking:
“Why here, why now, in what relationship with another sound – and what is the body's response telling me?”
I do not feel the need to say:
“I already know how it works.”
I would rather say:
I see certain patterns. I observe them, I test them, and I continue to ask questions.
Because the map can become increasingly precise.
But it should never obscure the territory.
