Create your own musical instrument, and write about it. This instrument could be a real, physical creation that you make and test, or it could be a “thought experiment” that you imagine you could build if you had enough time/skill/money/resources. Either way, it should be an original, realistic, playable     instrument that humans could actually listen to and enjoy.

In your paper, you should describe your instrument and its properties in terms of what you have learned in this course. Some things you could include:

•   Describe the design of your instrument.

o Include a sketch of the different parts of the instrument, and of the entire instrument. Sketches don’t have to be a masterpiece, but just something to give an idea of how it could look.

•    A name for your instrument.

•   An analysis of your instrument using the “Five Part Model” (Introduced in Week 9, but videos and the chapter PDF released on Mar. 10)

•    The physics behind how harmonics are created when a single note is played.

•   A description of how your instrument might sound and what kind of music might best be played on it.

Note on Originality: The instrument you make (and the name of the instrument) must be original. You cannot simply talk about an instrument that already exists. For example, if you were to write about a      flute, trombone, or ukulele, then that is not correct and you will lose many marks, since this is not      what the project is about. Do not think of this as a research project. While you may look for sources  to help you put together an original idea, we expect you to be creative and original , and this is a large part of what this assignment is about.

Note on Electronics: Your instrument should be made of physical elements that a person can actually  play. Because of this, for the most part, your instrument will likely be an ‘acoustic’ instrument.             However, you are allowed to add some electronic elements, like wires or sensors, if they can help will  help the other physical elements of your instrument work. What you are not allowed to do however, is have part of your electronic instrument include sound generated by a computer or phone app, which we know can generate any sound anyway. This is not in the spirit of the assignment, and you will lose       many marks ifany type of computer or app is part of your instrument. The harmonics and sounds        should be made by physical elements in the real world, outside of computers and phones.

The style of your paper should be impersonal, objective and professional – the same kind of        scientific writing style you might read on a popular science site, likehttps://science.howstuffworks.com/ for example.  The word-count of the main body of the paper must be between 1000 and 2000 words.      Although this is not a research paper, if you are using references for any reason, the reference section is not included in the word count. The word count can be calculated with your word-processing software,  such as Microsoft Word, and it will be calculated automatically when you submit to the course web-site (it is part of the turnitin originality report). If your word count is greater than 2000, you will be penalized for length at the rate of 5% of the mark per 200 words above 2000.

The total number of pages [including references, figures, cover sheet (not required), etc] should be no greater than 8. If the number of pages you turn in is greater than 8, you will be penalized at the    rate of 5% per page. You may include figures or diagrams which you create yourself, or you may use    figures or diagrams from another source as long as the source is referenced, and the original artists or    authors are acknowledged.

You must reference any articles, books or web-sites you’ve used as sources; these should be       cited in the paper near the fact or ideas that came from the source, then listed in full in the “References” section at the end.  Please see the Academic Guidelines on how to properly reference sources at your     college Writing Centre or on the web (http://advice.writing.utoronto.ca/using-sources/how-not-to-          plagiarize/) Basically, ifyou use an idea or image that you did not create yourself, you must reference    exactly where you got it – the reader should be able to go to the internet or library and verify your        source.  If you reference anything from the lecture notes, you can just refer to the overall chapter (ie       “Chapter 9 from Physics of Music notes by Jason Harlow and Mark Kazakevich”).

The Final Written Project has the following staged deadlines:

•   Friday, Mar. 17, 11:59pm: Short paragraph (5 Points). This is a paragraph which includes the        name of your instrument, a rough description of it, and a brief outline of what you intend to do and   write about.  The paragraph can be between 20 and 200 words.  The late penalty is that you lose all 5 points if this is late.

•   Friday, Mar. 24, 11:59pm: First Draft (5 points)  This should meet the length requirements, and it should be similar to your final version.  Every student gets 5 points for submitting a reasonable first draft on time.  First drafts submitted late will receive 0/5.

•   Friday Mar. 31, 11:59pm: Peer Review (10 points) Please read and review one other student's First Draft. You will be assigned another student’s paper randomly, shortly after the First Draft deadline, and you get 10 points for submitting a peer review by the Peer Review deadline.  You will not be     allowed to submit a peer review unless you have submitted your First Draft by the deadline!  So,      submitting a first draft late results in a 15-point penalty.

•   Thursday Apr. 6, 11:59pm: Final Version (80 points).   The late penalty for the final version is 2% per hour of lateness, which reduces to zero in 50 hours.  However, if the first draft was submitted     before the final version deadline, the student may request that the first-draft be marked as the final   version, in which case no late penalty is applied.

All submissions will be on Quercus.  The only electronic formats acceptable are PDF or Word    (PDF preferred).  Other formats, such as “Pages” , will not be accepted.  An “originality report” will be   generated by ouriginal.com, which is a comparison of the text-portion of your report to millions of other documents, including all reports previously submitted to ouriginal.com, and many documents which       were available at some time on the web.  The originality report is meant to deter plagiarism.  It will not  be used in the marking unless there is some evidence that an unusually large amount of your unquoted   text is identical to some other source. Note that it is not unusual for up to 5% of your paper to be unoriginal, particularly if there a lot of quotations and reference links, so don’t be alarmed.   If it’s much higher than this, you might want to consider why.

If you have an ethical objection and would prefer us not to use ouriginal.com, you may choose to submit only an emailed version of your paper to Professor Harlow ([email protected]), but in    this case you must also submit your rough notes, including an annotated bibliography, explicitly describing your sources, if applicable, and any images or videos of the actual instrument you created, if applicable.  Please email Professor Harlow at least one week before the deadline if you prefer not to use ouriginal on the Quercus.

Grading Rubric for Final Version

The final version of your paper will be graded out of 80 points, based on the following rubric, subject to minor modifications.

CONTENT / ORIGINALITY

•   20 = Creatively communicates understanding of the assignment through awareness of audience, tone and structure. Provides a vivid description of the instrument, including clear, well thought out analysis of the important properties through a unique and innovative perspective.

•    16 = Consistently demonstrates understanding of the assignment through awareness of audience, tone and structure. Provides a description of the instrument, including clear, well thought out      analysis of the important properties.

•    12 = Generally demonstrates understanding of the assignment through awareness of audience,     tone and structure. Provides a description of the instrument, including a good analysis of most of the important properties.

•   8 = Sometimes demonstrates understanding of the assignment through awareness of audience, tone and structure. Some important properties of the instrument are unclear or not well            described, or analysis is not completely accurate or thorough.

•   4 = Fails to demonstrate understanding of the assignment through awareness of audience, tone and structure. Does not adequately describe the most important properties of the instrument, or analysis is incorrect or incomplete.

ORGANIZATION

•   20 = Contains all the appropriate sections. Thoughts and ideas are generally logical and based on ideas from the course. Structure follows a logical progression.

•    16 = Contains most of the appropriate sections, and most thoughts and ideas are logical and      based on ideas from the course. Structure is good, with some possible unevenness in the logical progression.

•    12 = Contains some appropriate sections, with some thoughts and ideas are logical and based on ideas from the course. Structure follows a progression which is not difficult to follow.

•    8 = Contains a few of the appropriate sections, but little relation back to the course, and not enough structure for a logical progression.

•   4 = Lacks appropriate sections and/or ideas based on ideas from the course. Exhibits no logical progression in structure.

CLARITY / LANGUAGE

•   20 = Consistently uses terms and ideas from the course that are appropriate and specific to the instrument being described analyzed in a complete and thorough manner.

•    16 = Consistently uses terms and ideas from the course that are appropriate and specific to the   instrument being described and analyzed. The amount/choice of terms may not be complete and thorough.

•    12 = For the most part, uses terms and ideas from the course that are appropriate and specific to the instrument being described and analyzed. A few errors an inappropriate terms or language.

•   8 = An attempt to use proper terminology and ideas from the course, but frequently misuses the appropriate language. Demonstrates occasional misunderstanding of the subject through misuse of terms, ideas, and context.