Inventions

Having started rather badly at school and then gradually redeemed parts of myself over the next 60 years I must confess to being an “Inventor”. Not a White Coated Scientist, not really an Academic but rather more practical and pragmatic: a Natural Scientist and Chartered Engineer. An inventor of useful things, well at least in my view. Its strange how life twists and turns as we travel though the chaos of existence. So feast yourself on some Patents for a variety of strange things and Papers published in Learned Journals (before “Peer Review” became gang warfare). Wonder at the stoicism and patience of past audiences suffering my Presentations. Feast on pages of Books I’ve either written or contributed to. Relish the thought of being privy to my Projects. But more seriously pay Homage to my Mentor Ron Harvison who made practical for the first time read/write Stored Charge Random Access Memory, the foundation of computers and data storage. You will find his original designs here on this site, elegant invention and simple innovative design at its British Best. 

News about my or other inventions will be notified by Posts. The list of inventions provides an easy way to find the right Page, just click on the link and you will be magically transported there.
Most content can be downloaded as PDFs, audio files or short videos.

Here’s a List of Inventions, in no particular order …

1. Invention: Music Text Format <– Click on the link to goto the Page
   Inventor: Brian Kirk, Dec 2021; thanks to DanTheComposer (YouTube)
   Summary: A concise and precise way to write down the ‘barebones’ of a tune or song, including both the harmonic form and the tune such that it can be played in any music key.
   Purpose: this assumes that the musician is familiar with the tune and it’s phrasing. The timing of the notes is omitted to avoid copyright infringement and dire threats from Publishers. It is just an extension of the familiar Chord Chart (e.g. iReal) but still simple to type into any word processor or editor.

Here are my blog Posts on Inventions and their sub-topics:

• The Oakwood Guidelines
  Just a ‘heads up’ that I just Posted a feature on the Oakwood Guidelines. It was a private conference held in 1993 to discuss how to further the language Oberon. You’ll find it in Inventions -> My Projects
• Music Text Form
  If you are looking for a way to write down chord charts and melodies in a compact way then look no further. Just go to the the Inventions tab on the menu and look for Music Text Form in the list of inventions and click the link. I hope it is useful for you and … Read more