Why Joshua Tree? A Sound Bath Journey Back to My Desert Roots

Soulful Summit Retreat – Indian Cove – 2018

By Jamie Bechtold

Growing up in the desert near 29 Palms, just east of Joshua Tree, I spent my teenage years scrambling up rocks and wandering the trails of Indian Cove, a tucked-away corner of Joshua Tree National Park. The desert’s wide-open spaces, adventurous energy, night sky full of stars, and rocky landscape carved a deep place in my heart.

But like many young people, I couldn’t wait to trade the quiet, “boring” desert for the excitement of the city. So I packed up and moved to Los Angeles right after high school, where my path eventually took an unexpected turn toward sound baths, a practice I’d later help bring into the spotlight.

A bit about Joshua Tree

Joshua Tree is more than just a small desert town in Southern California’s Hi-Desert (the official spelling for this area), also called the Morongo Basin. It’s also the name of the iconic spiky tree and a large national park that draws visitors from all over the world.

While the town itself is distinct, people often use “Joshua Tree” to refer to the whole area, including nearby spots like Yucca Valley and 29 Palms, since it’s the name most people recognize. In this article, I’ll use “Joshua Tree,” “Hi-Desert,” and the names of surrounding towns when describing this area.

Back to sound baths

My first experience with a gong happened in a yoga class, where its deep, resonant sounds were used for meditation at the end of the session. That was my introduction to sound healing, a term often used to describe the use of sound for healing, usually mental and emotional, though some practitioners also claim physical benefits. The term “sound bath” entered my world through Kat Lyons, a mentor I studied with in Yucca Valley starting in 2003. A sound bath is different from sound healing. It is a group event where people lie down and relax while someone plays instruments in a way that supports deep relaxation and invites an inward journey.

Kat’s events, which she sometimes called sound baths (though she used a variety of other terms as well), used 3 to 9 gongs to create an immersive sound experience. She did not claim the term “sound bath,” and around the same time, others in Southern California were experimenting with gong and singing bowl relaxation events under the same name. Before this period, the terms “sound journey” or “sound immersion” were more commonly used for the same type of experience, which began to emerge in the 1980s. Then there was the Integratron, a unique dome located about 30 minutes from Joshua Tree, which began hosting sound bath events featuring crystal bowls in the early 2000s. They were the first to use that term for in-person events and helped popularize it. The origin of the term “sound bath” itself traces back to Tom Kenyon, who used it as the title of an album he created in the 1990s, intended to be listened to in the bathtub or jacuzzi.

I found it remarkable that this practice I’d grown to love was taking root in the very desert I’d called home during my childhood. The funny thing is, I didn’t even know about the Integratron back then. My aunt did, though. She had interviewed its creator, George Van Tassel, for a high school project long before sound baths became a cultural moment.

Building a sound bath community in Los Angeles

In Los Angeles, I dove headfirst into the world of sound baths, lugging gongs and crystal bowls all over the city to share this experience with others. Back then, hardly anyone knew what a sound bath was, and I was one of just a handful of people offering it.

Watching the practice catch on over the years was genuinely exciting. In the early days, people often asked what kind of bathtubs I would be using and whether they should be naked or wear a bathing suit.

By 2016, more people were hosting their own sound bath events, and the demand to learn grew so much that my partner Robert and I launched the first Soundbath Practitioner Training in 2017. This crystal bowl and gong training was designed for those who wanted to learn how to facilitate their own sound bath events. Our original format has since become a blueprint, and you’ll find its structure echoed in sound bath trainings worldwide.

The content in our training is unlike anything else available. It cannot be found in any other sound bath courses, because we developed a particular playing method for therapeutic-style sound baths over more than twenty years. The two-level, two-weekend structure, however, has become standard among those offering sound bath or sound healing training courses.

The Hi-Desert kept calling

In 2012, I began hosting overnight retreats at the Integratron and continued for several years, with my parents providing meals for our participants, most of them making the trek from Los Angeles. In 2017, Robert and I rented The Integratron for our Soulful Summit event, combining sound baths, breathwork, and other modalities with the expansive energy of the desert.

Over the next couple of years, we organized Desert Day Trips in Yucca Valley and Joshua Tree, spotlighting local spots like the Integratron to introduce more people to the Hi-Desert. We had always wanted to make the move and bring our work here, but were unsure how to do it while also running The Soundbath Center in Los Angeles.

In 2020, we made the move to Yucca Valley, a city located just west of Joshua Tree. Worth noting: Yucca Valley is filled with Joshua Trees. There are actually more of them here than in the town of Joshua Tree itself. While The Soundbath Center in Los Angeles continues to thrive and we enjoy running that venue, being back in the desert feels right.

The Gong Room: Sound Baths in Yucca Valley

In 2025, we opened The Gong Room, a dedicated sound bath studio in Yucca Valley. It is a private, intimate space built specifically for immersive sound experiences, workshops, and training. The studio holds up to 10 guests and is equipped with 12 large gongs on 2 walls, crystal singing bowls, and other instruments. Participants are surrounded by sound.

We offer public Gong Fusion™ sound bath events a few times per week, private sound baths for one to ten participants, mobile sound baths that we bring to your vacation rental or event space, and sound bath workshops and practitioner training for those who want to go deeper.

So, why Joshua Tree for a sound bath?

It is more than just a town or a place. The desert’s energy invites you to pause, breathe, and let go. A sound bath here feels different from one in the city. The quiet amplifies the instruments, the open space mirrors the inner journey, and the desert’s long history with sound healing adds something that is hard to put into words but easy to feel.

The Hi-Desert has a way of shifting perspective, whether you are looking for rest, creativity, or something you can’t quite name yet.

After years of building a sound bath community in Los Angeles, bringing this work back to the desert feels like a homecoming. This is where it all began for me, and where the modern sound bath movement first took shape.

If you are ready to experience a sound bath in Joshua Tree, we would love to welcome you to The Gong Room.

Learn more about The Gong Room

The Soundbath Center, Los Angeles 2015

Soulful Summit Retreat – Integratron – 2018