The Ear, Music, and Math
By High Tech High Media Arts Class of 2010
The idea for this project was conceived by our math teacher, Darren Miller. This project started when the other team of 11th graders went on Internship Immersion. In Brandon's class, we learned about hearing and the anatomy of the ear. In Darren's class later that day, we learned about how math is related to hearing. Then, we were ready to draft our book under the working title, Music, The Ear, and Math. My chapter was the chapter on Harmonics.
After the drafting and revision process, that involved us getting our work critiqued by our peers (see work samples for changes throughout drafts) , we broke off into groups for final publishing of a book, with an intent to have it in time for exhibition. I was in charge of the Publishing committee, I worked close to the head of formatting, Leland Clemmons, and was able to produce a ".pdf" of our final print-ready draft.
We used "Lulu Self Publishing" as our publisher for the book. We were able to get a promotional rate for the book, and were able to purchase 100 books for $4 each.
Unfortunatly, due to an unforseen formatting error, the book had a formatting problem. Because of this, our book was not able to be delivered at exhibiton. Instead, we took pre-orders for the fixed version of the book (using a glued "proof" to show what the final will look like). We plan to ship the finalized version of the book during the early summer of 2009, and then the final version should be available on online retailers such as Amazon.com
WORK SAMPLES:
My rough draft of my chapter of the book, "Harmonics":
My final draft of my chapter of the book, "Harmonics":
"Print-Ready" Proof (warning: big file):
Lulu Marketplace Entry:
PROJECT REFLECTION:
This project was one of my favorite projects of the year. I learned a lot, not just conceptually about sound, but a lot about the drafting and revision process and how to publish a book. This was the first book I have ever published. I learned a lot about what an ISBN is, distribution guidelines, and why embedding fonts can be important (through failure to do so).
I believe my chapter is to the best of my ability and that the only thing that I am improving for the public release of this book is to have all the fonts working and the book to look professional. I personally feel the need to rectify this even though my grade will not be affected if I don't do anything.
Throughout the drafting and revision process, I have received helpful feedback in the creation of my chapter. Most of the feedback, however, was that my chapter was "good". This was not helpful for my rough draft, as it didn't provide constructive criticism. The helpful feedback I received was given to me by people who weren't my classmates. They tore down my first draft and provided me with a great perspective on how other people view my writing style so that I could refine it to be more like content found in a text book.
I will improve the book and remain confident and optimistic that I will be able to ship this book to parents who ordered the book.
These skills that I learned when publishing this book will help me in the future as I will have the experience of publishing book and the importance of embedding fonts because a "print-ready interior" isn't always "What You See is What You Get".