While the sounds of the outside world are muffled by our ears evolved to hear in air, actually

there is also a loudness and space under the water. A person with average hearing, holding very still,

head submerged in calm water, can hear the dull whoosh and roar of their blood circulating, the

ticking and whirring of body systems to fuel metabolism, to stabilize body temperature, to process a

breath. The density of the water makes more space between the peaks of the sound waves, that while

not affecting the pitch of a tone, does create a more bassy, tactile sound, a deep, inextricable

connection between feeling these subtle processes and hearing them. In the realm of listening, the

surface of the water is a site of transformation, a paper-thin threshold, under which things are one way

and above which things are another way. A person who sinks into a bathtub, ears underwater, knows

this intrinsically.

As a lifelong swimmer who swam competitively at the collegiate level, being able to bring an
immersive listening experience that mirrors being deep underwater, to listeners on land, is a truly moving prospect. This project speaks directly to sound physics and as it plays with the phase changes of sound moving through air then through water, and the physics of a body, the shape of a swimming pool, all coordinating to create this unique reverberation. What an oscillator is doing digitally, the *water* is
doing to the sound in the pool, with the swimmer as an analog instrument. The name of this project, Deep Sound, refers both the harmonic quality of sound in water, but also the depth of this listening, poetically and literally.