Who am I? (bio)
I Am . . .
- An independent musician: I play guitar, bass, Hammond organ, synths, and drums.
- A Jamendo Artist, since 2006, with six albums available for free download: evolution, handmade, La vie sous la mer, and Points of Departure, Martian Winter, and In Unexpected Places.
- A former research chemist, who eventually found his true calling as a middle school science teacher.
- Interested in music theory, the mathematics of music synthesis, and software synthesis (with Csound).
- A Python programmer: author of pcsets: Pitch Class Sets for Python.
- A player of the board game Go. You can find me as “bmccosar” on DGS and OGS.
- A member of the Mvskoke (Creek) Nation, a Native American tribe indigenous to Georgia, Florida, and Alabama (but forcibly relocated to Oklahoma).
- A supporter of Creative Commons.
- A vegetarian (since 1992).
- A former resident of Gainesville, FL (1992 to 2008, the longest I’ve lived anywhere).
- A new resident in Sterling, VA (2008 to present).
8 Responses
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Hey, saw you on FAWM and noticed you were from G’ville. I went to UF for undergrad and grad, so I know the area well! Anyway, I’m enjoying your songs! More people should play organ!!
I review jazz CDs and jazz books at http://www.jazzreview.com and am interested in reviewing your material. Thank you, Lee.
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Hey Bruce,
I just wanted to extend you a big thanks for the Python module ‘pcsets’, it’s exactly what I was looking for and in the programming language I love.
Every time I think ‘Somebody HAS to have done this..’ and I google for it and ultimately find what I’m looking for I try to take a minute to stop and thank the person who did it and today thats you.
Thank you again, you’ve saved me some time and likely many others.
-Nathan
Wow! Thanks a lot. Yeah, I love Python, it’s turned into my secret powertool. I’m trying to learn enough Csound that I can automate all the hard stuff with the existing Python modules and some of my own devising.
I was working on version 3 for pcsets a while back, one with a core universal class and descendants that could be pcsets, tonerows, chords, melodies, etc, but it was just too darn complicated. Plus, after all that work, the randomly generated chord progressions I derived from it just didn’t have that magic. I think the human brain is still one up on machines (for now).
Probably the simplicity of version 2 was the right choice: a specific module for a specific problem, instead of some code-bloated nightmare.
I haven’t found any bugs, which already makes me think, hey, it isn’t broke, don’t go out of the way to create new problems
What a fun CC world. I was googling for something else entirely, and found your weblog. Great to read about your adventures in jamendo and microtonal work!
Hey-
Heard you FAWM on Soundclick and really enjoyed it. Am doing it this year. Check out the Immersion Composition Society!
http://www.lowartmusic.com
Hello Bruce,
I was tempted to write in french (to test your skills
but i guess it’s more public in english.
I recently started a project to kind of promote the use of the musical object “the circle of fifths” in many uses (representation of a chord, scale, composition ect.)
My first step was to allow such a circle to be embedded. Here’s a major chord :
http://www.lame-spirale.net/c5.php?c=11001
Second step is the construction of a voicings dictionary like many exist on the web with 2 main differences :
- data will be freely available for external uses
- i will let go chords name and use the circle of fifths to have a more mathematical approach : it’s not a good way of thinking to separate Am7 and C6 voicings as thay contain the same notes.
And i found it’s very similar to the pitch class set theory.
Luckily a friend just made me quit php tu use django as a framework so i am able to use your python pcsets library , and i’ve got to say it’s just perfect for my use!
Many thanks for that, i will be able to concetrate on the SVG interface which is difficult enough.
More ramblings on github if you find interest in the subject :
http://wiki.github.com/LameSpirale/c5
Thx again
Lame Spirale
@LameSpirale — thanks for the kind words, and you inspired me to finally write about what I’ve been working on in secret: gpcsets: Pitch Class Sets for Haskell. In the article, I talk a little bit about pcsets-3.0 (which will be based on Python 3.0).