Interview with Ines and Broder Oetken Part 2/3

What Makes a Gong Good or Bad? Extraordinary Gongs
– Part 2 of a three-part interview with Ines and Broder Oetken on November 21, 2022, in Fockbek

Continuing our conversation in the kitchen:

What’s one of the most interesting gongs you’ve ever built?

Ines: Phew, that’s a good question—the Jelly Gong?

Bop: The Jelly Gong, yes.

Ines: You know, when gongs are finished quickly and leave us just as quickly… you don’t really build a relationship with them. They get made, then listened to. If they sound good, off they go. So you tend to build relationships with the gongs that are problematic- and those often end up getting names. One of those was the first Sound Creation Earth in 40” that Broder built in his independent work - it gave us a hard time.

Bop: And the issue was: when it sounded good, it was completely unstable and wobbled - literally like jelly.

Ines: Normally, when you play a gong, the edge is relatively stable. But with this one, the whole rim wobbled. Even the center was trembling. If you’ve ever poked a bowl of jelly and seen it jiggle—that’s exactly what this gong did. That’s why we named it Jelly Gong.

Bop: Then we tried to make it more stable. But when it was stable, it didn’t sound good anymore. So we went back to working on the sound. And when it sounded good again, it was back to being unstable. That gong took an insane number of hammer strikes, and we just couldn’t crack the code. It either sounded good and was unstable, or it was stable and didn’t sound good.

Ines: And in the end, it sounded so cool!

Bop: I finally chose the sound and decided I couldn’t sell it as a regular gong. We hung it up here and showed it every now and then—figuring one day someone would come along who appreciated it just as much as we did. And that’s exactly what happened. We were really sad when it eventually left.

Ines: Yes! We really liked him! The sound was super cool. Lately, I’m the one who tends to form relationships with the gongs—because I also play them. The first Mystical Earth we had, for example, was like a little punk. The Mystical Earth is a combination of the Water Gong and the Sound Creation Earth Gong.

Maybe I should explain a bit more: it was clear that Broder wanted to try combining both in one gong. But he just wouldn’t start… and I’m more the impatient one, so I said, Just get started already! And eventually, during a conversation, I realized—he was already working on it, I just didn’t notice, because he had started by thinking it through in his head.

The problem, of course, was: what do you do first? The Sound Creation Earth is hammered from both sides. But if he builds the Earth first, the surface won’t be flat anymore, and he won’t be able to drive in the Water part. On the other hand, if he starts with the Water, he can’t lay it flat anymore to do the Earth hammering on the second side. So he’d already been mentally working on that for quite a while.

He ended up taking one that was already finished as a gong, but it was really stiff—and that’s why it could never become a standard gong. It had tons of tension and was hanging high on a double stand. Below, we hang the heavy gongs—like the 40-inchers—and I always had the feeling that this one looked down at them with contempt, as if to say, What do you want? I’m way more than you are.

Bop: It really was a very, very powerful 32-inch gong.

Ines: That’s why I named it Little Punk. And he’s still called that. He eventually found a new home—with someone who plays him and loves him. It’s always lovely to know where these special gongs go.

We once had a 40” Accent Gong that was absolutely amazing. Maike, my sister-in-law, who mainly does the sound journeys here, loved that gong!!! That Accent Gong eventually went to Switzerland. It ended up with Alan Steinborn, who often plays with flumies (friction mallets) and has made educational videos with them. That was one of those gongs that was really hard for her to let go.

You can also try out my current special gong—right now, we have a few hanging that I deeply appreciate because their sound is just beautiful! One is the Master Tuning Fork, another is a Sound Creation Earth, and then there’s a very unusual one: a 28-inch Comet.

Especially with the Comets, I often get to say whether they’re good or not. Because Comets are allowed to be free—they can pretty much do whatever they want.

Broder is normally very strict about making sure gongs are closely aligned with each other, but not with the Comets. The team thought this one was really bad, and I played it and felt: Wooooowwww, what is this gong saying?! Where does it want to go? Fantastic gong! And the three gong builders were like, But it’s terrible! And I said: No! Just listen to what it’s doing! That’s where we as players sometimes have a different perspective than the guys who build them.

I can imagine that. It’s really interesting to understand—what actually makes a gong good or bad? What are the criteria to assess that?

Ines: That’s honestly very subjective.

Bop: That’s one of the most important reasons we took part in the Caravan of Peace. We wanted to hear more from gong players themselves—what they value and want in a gong. But in the end, our hearing is totally subjective. Just as every person has their own truth, everyone also has their own hearing preferences—what they like to hear or not. You can’t completely put yourself into someone else’s perspective.

Ines: When you talk about sound perception, you’re really talking about emotions. And emotions are different for everyone—and you can’t describe them. There are no words that can fully express the feeling you're having in a way that lets another person truly understand it. Because emotions simply do vary.

Bop: To even have a conversation about sound, you first have to agree on a shared language. What do you actually mean by this or that term? What exactly are you describing as sound? Does your counterpart even understand “sound” the way you want to express it? Maybe you see something red but have learned to call it orange, and I see blue but have also learned to call it orange—so what’s really true?

Ines: Exactly, we don’t even know what we’re actually seeing. We’ve just learned to use a specific word for it. We can’t really verify whether we’re seeing the same thing.

Bop: There are people, for example, who perceive colors as numbers. So what’s really happening internally—and what have we simply agreed to call it?

Ines: Many people also see sound as colors. That’s actually not so uncommon.

Bop: So—what perception is taking place inside us, and what language have we learned to use to describe it? It’s just not 100% possible to ensure that two people are perceiving the same thing. But talking about it at length definitely helps—to get closer and gain more clarity. Preferences also differ. One person thinks a gong is great, the next one doesn’t.

Ines: You even find that in the nuances. For Broder, for example, it’s important that a gong doesn’t “sway”—that “wah-wah” effect. Alexandra Ott is actually one of the reasons why our gongs have changed in that respect—why that wobble is now more accepted. She’s had a 24” Paiste Moon Gong for ages, which she absolutely loves. And I found it awful… I didn’t like that swaying at all… but then I took part in one of her sound baths—and that exact gong carried me away. And since then, I’ve found it beautiful. A certain kind of swaying I can now totally accept—because it transports you. And that’s why I sometimes outvote the guys and say: Hey, that’s exactly what a gong player might really want. They tend to see it more technically—and I bring in the other aspect.

Bop: I might say “swaying”—and others call it the Magic Wah-Wah Effect.

Ines: There really are differences. There’s also a kind of swaying that feels uncomfortable—at least for me. I can only speak for myself. Someone else might feel completely differently about it.

Bop: That’s exactly the point. One person says: It’s like a techno beat—it’s harsh on my heart and super unpleasant. And the next doesn’t even notice it—or isn’t bothered by it. Even our perception of what’s pleasant or unpleasant is completely subjective. There’s such a thing as pleasant goosebumps—and also unpleasant goosebumps. So what exactly is it that you’re experiencing in that moment?

Ines: It’s exactly the same with sound.

(Everyone agrees.)

Bop: And that’s why it’s incredibly difficult. I often make a point—when, for example, groups come in to choose symphonic gongs—that I intentionally leave the gongs very different from one another, so they’re not all the same. Because if someone doesn’t connect with one, and they’re all very similar, then they won’t connect with any. But if there’s variation—differences they can feel—they can choose more easily.

So it’s often good to say: I’ll let the gongs be more free, more diverse than I normally would, and then they have to decide for themselves what they like and what suits them. That also happens often when the gongs are still in the fine-tuning stage and people want to hear them already. Sometimes a gong then already resonates with someone and feels exactly right—while to me, it’s not even finished yet and doesn’t meet the criteria I’m aiming for.

Ines: If we ship a gong, it has to be reliably very similar to our other gongs that you may have already heard. So that you can reliably order this gong and not get God knows what. That's why we distinguish between standard and non-standard. For example, the Comet I mentioned or the Punk, we would never ship them like that. I think they're really cool; they're gongs you only get here. They're not standard gongs; if you do, you choose them consciously. And if you choose one that we don't yet see in the standard range, that's totally fine with us. But for someone who orders blindly, it might not be what they expected, and therefore we don't ship those gongs.

To return to the original question: What constitutes a good gong is perhaps difficult to answer, but what constitutes a bad gong, in my opinion, is one that erupts, that makes some kind of whistling sound, that works against me when I swing. For Broder, it's even more nuanced. The fact that a gong doesn't sound the way it should is primarily a matter of the components. Sometimes there are people who are looking for exactly that, like a very high note, for example.

Sometimes, when gongs are fresh and new, they have moments like that, but it usually passes very quickly..

Bop: I basically compare it to young and old people: Young people are like that too: I'll do this for a bit, I can do that, and they sometimes overestimate themselves, act up, think they can do something better. An old person who knows what they can do, how things work – they can assess themselves better, they are more balanced... it's basically the same with a gong. A young gong sometimes acts up, and over time it becomes more comfortable, more balanced, more harmonious. So, it's basically like life. Maybe as a young person you heard sayings from your parents that you thought you'd never say, but then at some point you catch yourself saying them or think they were right after all. It's this kind of situations...

I also find it quite fascinating how, in the end, we are all completely unique and always have our own perceptions, even if we've just experienced exactly the same thing. How can we know that this one is my gong?

- You'll find the answers to this question, how best to find your gong, and what fascinates the Oetkens about gongs to this day in the last part of this interview, which will be published as soon as possible.

-You will find the amazing gongs here: http://www.oetken-gongs.de/ or also in my Online Shop

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