Aummmmmmmmm! Many religions take part in chanting and/or om. The Native Americans take part in chanting and their drums match the heartbeat of the earth.

Do you believe that this gets us to the heart of all things and gives us more power?

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Yes! I see it is a form of meditation. When the mind is focused on simply one thing (breathing, staring, focused attention or chanting) things become more clear.

No "tools" are really nessacary, yet our mind can't comprehend it. Controlling the mind to focus on one thought is the first step in being able to let go of all thoughts.

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May your awareness be perfection

" Hello , Is Mooomooo there ? "

Perhaps ,,, all sound when it leaves it's departation area [ the mouth] it is on a mission to a target . The sound is exiting your body on a seek and destroy mision lol oops l mean it has a goal to reach a target .
You may say "hello " to your spouse as your spouse is the target of your words or sound being sort of 'ejected ' from your body , sort of lol .

So even the 'aummm sound' chant is actually on a target .
Sound being projected from us is 'thought' first and before that it is pre-thought . There is no sound in pre-thought and only God is there . So somewhere in the "transportation of thought" system God's words for us to project out to a target gets hijacked or changed as soon as this 'thought to be' leaves the pre-thought area .

As it leaves the pre-thought area it transitions into a thought we can see in our mind and then it transitions into verbal sound and we say the word . However it changed in the transition of it going through the " transportation of thought" system .
To get around this , although they do not know this yet , they chant which is blocking any thought from being hijacked or changed , They do not know today yet , that this is going on and they have other reasons for the chants .

As one who has used both meditation and drumming, I wouldn't go quite as far as you question implies. However, I certainly feel that both may have the effect, as it did on me, to create a "mantra" that helps one in more ways than one. It's relaxing. It encourages contemplation. And who knows what else.

Of course it undoubtedly has different effects on different people.

Shalom and can we now sing "Om, Om on the range...",
Vern

There's no place like Om even if its on the range.

All kidding aside, I think it's the vibrations of the Om that connects us. Even in a chant or song, maybe its not the words, but the vibrations.

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As an anthropologist, I have always found it amazing that every single culture I have ever studied heavily relies on music. I cannot think of a single society where they don't have it and don't extensively us it. To me, that tells me there's something inside of us that "connects" with it and deems it essential. Maybe it's "vibrations" as you say, or maybe it's something else. I don't know.

Shalom,
Vern