Red Doors Studio
A centre of calm on the 21st floor, built around Asia’s largest collection of meditation gongs. We bring ancient, time-tested practices of deep relaxation — gongs, walking meditation on labyrinths, Kundalini yoga — to a city that rarely stops.
New to this? Simply lie down, nestled in an oversized blanket, and close your eyes. No experience necessary.
“Every motion that springs forth from this silent life is a vibration and a creator of vibrations.”
Hazrat Inayat Khan, The Mysticism of Sound (1923)
Four ways in
Studio events
New moon and full moon gong baths, gong training, private and small-group sessions, all-night pujas.
Public events
Festivals, museums and partner venues across Hong Kong and the region.
Corporate
Sound sessions brought to your office, offsite, conference or client event.
Shop
Gongs, bowls, chimes and mallets — the instruments we play, and the ones we teach on.
Five moments
No experience needed and nothing to prepare. This is the whole of it.
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15 minutes early
Shoes off at the red door
Take the lift to the 21st floor and leave the city at the door. Nothing to prepare.
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Settle
Find your place on the floor
Wear something loose; changing areas are available. We provide mats, blankets, eye covers, essential oils and crystals.
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Intention
A guided meditation
A short themed meditation to begin. Your breath slows and the day loosens its grip.
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About 45 minutes
Then the sound arrives
It builds into a wash you feel in your chest and through the floor. Thoughts thin out.
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Return
Spiced tea and brownies
Take your time to return from your sonic journey and enjoy our hospitality.
What that feels like under the gongs
The sound starts so quietly you cannot place where it is coming from. Stroke by stroke it builds, until the room is a single wash with no obvious source and no rhythm to anticipate. That unpredictability matters: there is no pattern for the mind to lock onto, so it stops trying.
Thoughts thin out. You lose track of how long you have been there. Some people fall asleep, some see colour behind their eyes, some find a wave of emotion arriving without a reason attached to it. All of it is normal and none of it is required.
Leave content, at peace, clear headed and lighter than when you arrived.
Why it works Turn to the cymatics side“Rhythm and harmony find their way into the inward places of the soul, on which they mightily fasten.”
Plato, The Republic, Book III
Regularly at Red Doors“Take a music bath once or twice a week for a few seasons. You will find it is to the soul what a water bath is to the body.”
Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.
- New moon & full moon gong baths
- Gong training, Levels 1–3
- Sound events
- All-night gong pujas
- Private & small-group sessions
- Kundalini yoga
- Walking meditation on labyrinths
In their words
... mind-blowingly unbelievable.
Read it all
Martha’s musicianship, sensitivity, and hospitality are world class. It’s been over a week since I had the opportunity to experience a gong bath with her, and the response I posted on social media that evening says it all: I have experienced sound baths. I have given sound baths. I have a deep appreciation for what sound can do to the mind, body, and soul. But I just got out of a gong bath by Martha Collard (of Red Doors Studio) that was mind-blowingly unbelievable.
I cannot thank you enough for sharing your exceptional, unique, and powerful expertise.
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Not a day goes by, Martha, without me hearing from someone who attended the Global Wellness Summit in Singapore that your gong baths and main stage performance changed their lives. I think it’s fair to say you were the talk of the summit, and that’s quite something. It’s particularly noteworthy because our audience, as you know, is invitation-only, C-suite executives, mostly running multinational corporations. For them not just to experience what you offered, but to be so moved by it, is a testament to the power of what you do.
I wasn’t prepared for how compelling the gong would be as an instrument for transformation.
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Martha opened the world of the gong to me. As a player of metal Tibetan-style bowls, I wasn’t prepared for how compelling the gong would be as an instrument for transformation. I’m excited for this entirely new territory that promises so much.
I now understand the art and science behind the gong.
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Fabulous course. Beyond expectations. Martha’s knowledge, enthusiasm, patience, and preparation all came through. I absorbed a lot during this class. I now understand the art and science behind the gong. I seek to play a gong musically, and for healing. Using Martha’s techniques and the homework introduced in this class, I found how soothing and enlightening the gong can be.
... enlivening my body’s cells, and raising my vibrational energy.
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Martha’s intro course and gong-playing practicum course took me from knowing very little about gongs to buying one and playing it daily for calming the nervous system, spiritual focus, enlivening my body’s cells, and raising my vibrational energy. Thank you, Martha, for elevating us all!
She articulates complex acoustical principles with remarkable clarity.
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Martha’s instructional approach reflects both deep respect for traditional practices and a commitment to evidence-based applications. She articulates complex acoustical principles with remarkable clarity, making them accessible without intellectual compromise. For professionals accustomed to empirical evaluation, Martha provides a rare bridge between sensory experience and analytical understanding.
Who we have played for
From banks and law firms to luxury houses, festival stages and cancer charities.
- HSBC
- KPMG
- AXA
- Otis
- Gibson Dunn
- HK General Chamber of Commerce
- Artemis Associates
- LVMH
- Chanel
- Shangri-La
- Mandarin Oriental
- Lane Crawford
- Shiseido
- lululemon
- Club Monaco
- Cathay Pacific
- Harbour City
- Global Wellness Summit
- Clockenflap
- Hush!! Full Music x Wellfest
- AT ONE International Festival
- Hong Kong Tourism Board
- The Hong Kong Polytechnic University
- South Island School
- Hong Kong Cancer Fund
- Maggie’s Cancer Caring Centre
Find the red doors
黄竹坑道31號利基中心21楼A室 21/F Flat A, Lee Fund Centre,31 Wong Chuk Hang Road, Hong Kong
info@red-doors.com
+852 9673 8075
The field behind this page is real.
Cymatics is the science of visualising sound waves through particles. The simplest way to demonstrate it is by rimming a singing bowl and seeing the wave patterns in the water, or by sprinkling a flat piece of metal with sand and running a bow along the edge to make the sand move. The background field you see is a computerised version of the equation that governs sand on a vibrating plate, applied to 65,000 grains in real time. Move to the bottom right of the page and you can change the sound and see how they move.
“As I was scraping a brass plate with a sharp iron chisel … I once or twice, during many strokes, heard the plate emit a rather strong and clear whistling sound; on looking at the plate more carefully, I noticed a long row of fine streaks parallel and equidistant from one another.”
Galileo Galilei, Two New Sciences (1638)
This side of the page is why that matters.
Turn back the way you came, or press ← and →.
Everything vibrates.
A struck gong pushes and pulls the air around it into travelling waves of pressure: compression and rarefaction. These low-frequency waves extend from the gong, travelling at 343 metres per second. They bounce off hard surfaces, creating a complex plasmon of vibrating molecules in which you are immersed.
Sound waves travel 4.5 times faster through water, as well as through all our body tissues. A large gong is felt in the chest, the hands and the floor the moment before it is recognised as sound at all.
Strike it. Click anywhere on the strip. Watch one dot rather than the whole row: it only shuffles back and forth about its own place. Nothing travels across the strip except the squeeze.
Simply being in the presence of a gong well played moves you – mechanically and measurably. That is physics.
“Hearing is basically a specialized form of touch.”
Dame Evelyn Glennie, percussionist, Hearing Essay
Vibration takes a shape.
In 1787 Ernst Chladni made frequency visible in a systematic way, by taking a metal plate, sprinkling it with sand and then drawing a bow along its edge. The vibrations in the metal caused the sand to move, creating standing waves in a precise geometric pattern. Change the note and the pattern instantly dismantles itself and reorganises into a new one.
We observe nature creating these same patterns in the ripples of sand dunes.
“On employing this means, the first figure that presented itself to my eyes upon the circular plate already mentioned, resembled a star with ten or twelve rays.”
Ernst Chladni, quoted in John Tyndall, Sound (1867)
Hover a pattern and the field behind this page holds it. Move away and it goes back to following your scrolling.
You can also drag the cursor straight through the field to disturb the grains, and the sound toggle bows a violin at whatever frequency the plate is currently holding.
It’s not just relaxing, it’s ineffable.
To call it simply relaxing is understating the myriad benefits of being in the presence of a gong.
You have just watched sound rearrange sand. Your body is composed of at least 60% water. Water transmits sound 4.5 times faster than air. When a large gong is struck, the low tones reach you through the air; they touch your skin and pass through your body. We say ‘the whole body is an ear’. To experience a gong is a full-body immersive experience of mind and body.
One note, sweeping. Each circle moves only when the note matches its own size. Drag it yourself, or let it sweep.
What happens in your brain
Your brain runs on electrical rhythms. When you are busy and alert, they are fast. As you relax and drift towards sleep, they slow down. I observe the shift before my eyes: breathing deepens, the body relaxes and becomes still. The sounds of the gongs facilitate the shift; their dense harmonics and overtones overwhelm a mind that can no longer predict what’s next. It’s like pressing the ‘reset’ button on your laptop.
In 2022 I led a 12-week pilot study with eleven senior executives: twenty minutes of gong a week, tracked with standard questionnaires for sleep, stress and wellbeing. The results were: 100% improvement in sleep, 83% decrease in perceived stress and 72% improvement in overall wellbeing. I am currently running a program on The Shift Network to evaluate online delivery of these power naps in order to reach a broader audience.
“I have the strongest reason for believing that what the nerves convey to the brain is in all cases motion.”
John Tyndall, Sound (1867)
Sound moves the body. That part is settled physics. What it does for you is personal, and I would rather tell you that honestly than promise you more.
Ancient knowledge, for a modern problem.
Stress is a normal part of everyday life. However, over an extended period of time chronic stress puts undue pressure on overloaded nervous systems, leading to increased morbidity and the onset of other diseases. Long hours, population density and 24/7 communication keep the body in a high state of alert long after any threat has passed.
Our ancestors built practices that deliberately used instruments such as gongs, bowls, drums and their voices to alter states of consciousness, to relieve tension and in some cases to communicate over vast distances.
Red Doors exists to bring those time-honoured and proven practices to a modern audience. It is a place of experiential education: a place of international reputation, acknowledged as a pioneer in Asia, with an ever-expanding sphere of influence, making ancient knowledge relevant and accessible.
Founded by Martha Collard. About the founder · Press and awards