fathom

Composer: Bonnie Miksch

A fathom is the approximate distance between a person’s outstretched hands, and this unit is used to measured the depths of the ocean.

To fathom the depths of an ocean, an echo sounder records the amount of time a sound takes to bounce back from the ocean floor. Related to the oceanic meaning, fathom also means to get to the bottom of something, to penetrate, to comprehend.

As I composed this work for piano, I kept all of these meanings in mind. I contemplated the color of sound underwater, resonance returning to the surface, and how the extreme registers of the piano span the length of one fathom. I also thought of the ocean and it’s mysteries, of a wilderness beyond our imaginations, of the ocean as a metaphor for the self, and of our earnest desire to fathom the self.