__________________________________2008___________________________________________________

August 16: Fourth movement of the Grand Serenade (see just below) now done and listed on the Music page. Also there's a recent photo gallery from the lab on the Physics page; I'm working on new antenna designs.

July 11: Had a great concert at Glenaire retirement community in Cary NC on Thursday July 10. Fred Jacobowitz, clarinet, Bonnie Thron (Fred's wife), cello, and David Thron (Bonnie's brother) played my Grand Serenade. It went very well; do please listen to the recording on the Music page under Music for Mixed Ensembles. I'm going to write a fourth movement for this piece shortly.

June 1: Couldn't write music for 6 weeks after April 1, but now back in the swing of things; just completed the first movement of A Major Piano Sonata (not really in A major) and have the score and synthesized recording on the Music page under Music for Keyboards (bottom right column). Have avoided writing for piano solo for many years but finally getting around to it.

        The project has focused on getting low pressures since late January, and finally I've achieved 12 mTorr, the limit of the mechanical pump I've been using. Now I'm painting the inside surface of the reactor with ceramic paint (a very difficult job and not sure it's working until it's pumped out again), and about to add a turbomolecular pump to see how far down I can go in pressure. This is essential for the experiment to test for fusion reactions. Also I'm working on instrumentation, which is another great challenge. Pictures will come in a few days....

April 5: Now have the March 1 concert recording of Eric Pritchard and Randall Love playing the Govinda Sonata on the Music page; this is my highest-quality recording to date. Do give it a listen. (First movement; second movement; third movement)

April 1 (no fooling!): Now posting the completed Ananda Dances for string quartet, score and synthesized recording, on the music page.

March 8: On March 1, Eric Pritchard and Randall Love, a pianist on the Duke faculty, played the entire Govinda Sonata for the first time, at the Nelson Room at Duke. Great success! Many smiles!

       Had a great visit late last month by Dr. George Miley of the Nuclear Engineering faculty at University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Very encouraging. Being bedeviled by leaks and must figure out how to get low pressures before I can make any progress.

February 14: Just posted the third movement of a new string quartet, score and recording.

       Eric Pritchard and Barbara McKenzie played the middle movement of the Govinda Sonata in its violin and piano incarnation, and Eric played the Sonata #11 for solo violin in Morehead City last Friday. Then the following afternoon the three of us had a delightful salon near Wilmington to drum up interest in the upcoming concert at UNCW on Sunday Feb. 17 with the same program (also including Beethoven's Spring Sonata and a violin sonata by Faure).

February 2: Just recorded the first movement of the next piece, the Ananda Dances, see it on the Music page. More music for Eric, and the Ciompi Quartet.

January 20: Finished the Grand Serenade--take a listen on the Music page in Music for Mixed Ensembles.

        On Tuesday I take the two aluminum hemispheres to the physics department machine shop for a major upgrade. After getting them back I'll take a few weeks to refit, then should be able to get to rather low pressures and start the really interesting part of my experiment.

January 1: Posted a new gallery of photos from my lab. Also, have just completed and posted the synth recording and score for the first two movements of my new Grand Serenade for clarinet, cello and piano. Hope you like it!

__________________________________2007__________________________________

December 13: Finally have solved some big problems with my reactor (running it was setting off loud alarms and the video camera was freaking out); now can get some great pictures and will post some shortly. However until the physics department machine shop works on my sphere in late January I'm stuck at only 2 torr instead of 1 to 10 mtorr...

November 15: Had my preliminary exam today, went very well. You can see the PowerPoint presentation at the Physics page.

November 1: Finished Ananda Songs, and now have score and synth recording on the Music Page. This completes the Sixth CD which I've started to burn; it includes the songs along with Ananda Concerto and Ananda Sonata.

        Made a conceptual breakthrough in the physics project; who knows if it's good, more symbol shuffling to double check best I can. Now I need to get the sphere capable of much better vacuum (currently at a dismal 3 torr!). More when I have something figured out.

October 10: Just posted two things. One is the second of the Ananda Songs for violin, soprano and piano, Hare Krishna Mahamantra; see it on the Music Page.

        Then there is the new paper on my ball reactor experiment, sort of a warm-up for my thesis. Although there are no diagrams, you can get good text explanations of what I'm up to that go along with the galleries.

October 5: Lost my camera in August but got another one, finally have posted a new gallery of lab shots on the Physics page, along with--the FIRST VIDEO of the ball reactor in operation. (This is .mpg and won't play on Quick Time, use Windows Media Player or Real Player. Still frames from this video are in the latest gallery.) No ball lightning or analog yet, but it is exciting to have things working. Much tweaking, refinements, and many many experiments yet to go over the next two years.

September 30: Had a wonderful concert at Smedes Parlor at Saint Mary's School here in Raleigh on the 25th, met some great people; Eric Pritchard and Mayron Tsong from UNC played the first movement of the Ananda Concerto. If you want all 20 minutes instead of just the first 6, there will be a presentation of  whole thing in Durham and Wilmington next February.

       New recording and score on the Music page! A work in progress, the first installment of Ananda Songs for violin, soprano and piano (more music for Eric), A Sufi Song. The lyrics are by Rumi and you may see the words on the Spirituality page. Just the synthesized version for now but just you wait.  

      The physics experiment is getting very interesting. I've had the first real complete operation of the reactor last week, and it actually functions! No ball lightning yet, but I do get a generalized discharge throughout the chamber for about a tenth of a second at 3 torr. There's a long way to go; will have a new paper and photos in a little bit. It's a relief to see that my handmade microwave engineering actually functions, and rather dramatically.

August 21: Have been working on the Variations on the Grosse Fuge since completing the Ananda Sonata, changing it from a work for 5 synthesizers into a concerto for string quartet and orchestra, and also a piano quintet. Both are now on the Music page in  synthesized recordings. The two versions cover pretty much the same notes but in very different ways.

      School starts tomorrow....

     The physics project proceeds apace. Had the first full-scale everything-turned-on test last week. The sparker filled the sphere with a flash of light; that thing has been very difficult to get to work correctly but now after several remakes and redesigns is reliable and does a good job. However powering the twenty magnetrons is more difficult, and the 4000 V pulse blew up several resistors in spectacular fashion, leaving our ears ringing. Now I've got HV 500 ohm resistors en route shipping here and when they arrive, I'll fit them into the circuit and flip the switches again. Let's hope next time the only explosions are INSIDE the sphere! More pix after I buy another camera, lost mine during a trip to West Virginia recently.

June 18: Completed  Eric Pritchard's Ananda Sonata for violin and piano in 32 days, now you can hear the synth recording and see the score on the Music page in the Music for Strings section. Quite a wild little piece. Looks like Eric will play the violin and piano version of Ananda Concerto on his recitals next February, best guess at the moment.

May 12: Finished Eric's Ananda Concerto on May 4; completed the piano reduction of the orchestral score yesterday and the recording of the second movement today. You can find the complete new concerto on the Music page. Now on to a violin sonata, again for Eric, which will take most of the summer.

        Progress in physics; completed the semester with a presentation on cosmic ray detection; working on control circuitry, cameras, and the vacuum system for the plasma experiment now. I hope to start firing off the first shots within a month. Still a lot of work to go.

April 30: Terrific concert on April 28th at the 40th anniversary concert of the Duke University String School. Dorothy Kitchen conducted the first movement of the Chamber Concerto for piano and small orchestra, with student soloist Joseph Shim. The next two movements will follow on the two fall concerts. Big crowd filled Baldwin Auditorium, by far the biggest audience ever for my music.

       Also, on April 20 the Chamber Concerto for piano, string orchestra and timpani was performed by the Virginia Youth Symphony Orchestra in Hampton Roads, VA, conducted by Robert Ian Winstin.

       I've made arrangements of the Govinda Sonata for violin instead of flute, and of the Gayatri Sonata for bassoon instead of cello. You can see the new scores on the Music page. Also I've added a new recording of the freshly finished third movement of the Ananda Concerto for violin and orchestra; all that's left is to compose the end of the second movement.

       The physics progresses--will go a bit faster now that classes are over for the summer; should start making BIG SPARX within a month.

April 3: Finally figured out how to adjust a recording of The Elements of Wind and Wood for woodwind quintet; it's from a rehearsal in November 2005 by members of the Nashville Symphony, but the second and third movements were too fast. Also I had to change the file format. Using Sonar 6 I changed the tempi and the recording is now posted on the Music page, do please give a listen. The first movement has an error in the horn part about halfway through due to a copywork mistake that lasts for some time, but...hope you don't mind!

       Nobel Laureate Dr. David Lee from Cornell took a tour of my lab yesterday and found it quite interesting.

April 2: New gallery of lab photos on the Physics Page. Infinite Energy magazine published the SMC reactor research proposal in the March/April 2007 issue. I'm afraid I can't believe anything else I read in that magazine, but I can't really publish in a more standard journal until I actually have results instead of severe speculation. Not far from starting to blow things up--hoping for May! Need to finish up some control circuits and rig the video, as well as pressure gauge, vacuum systems etc. But most of the grunt work is done.

February 22: I've posted the recordings of Sonatas 1, 10, and 11 from Eric's January 14th recital; sounds good!

       Currently I'm composing Eric's concerto, as noted below, and also a reworking of the Variations on the Grosse Fuge for string quartet and orchestra. This is requiring some new composition but in general, the synthesizer original from 1987 falls easily into the new format.

 January 16: The concerts went VERY well. Also I've updated the proposal paper on the Physics page. AND! On Christmas Day I started the Ananda Concerto for violin and orchestra, more stuff for Eric to play someday...and finished the first movement a couple of days ago. See the score and listen to the synth MP3 on the Music page.

___________________________2006__________________________________________________________

December 22: Not quite in time to mail out for Xmas, BUT! Now have finished The Fifth CD: Chamber Music, the best yet. Also, now the recording of Der Jammerwock now has the vocal track included thanks to the singing of Thomas Jaynes, baritone, who lives in Durham. Makes all the difference. And I've freshened up recent recordings and scores to reflect recent tweaks. A strong end to a year that produced about an hour of music.

December 17: Finished the new Quartet for a New Beginning for violin, clarinet, cello, and piano. Any resemblance to Quartet for the End of Time is purely coincidental. The complete recording and score now on the Music page. Come give a listen! This is the final piece for the new 5th CD that will come out very shortly.

December 1: (a little microwave humor here) Added a new gallery of lab shots from October and November, see the Physics page.

November 3:  If my reading of the statistics is correct, and I don't know if it is, the research paper is the most-viewed item on this website, with something like 300 downloads a month, and with increasing frequency. Next comes the trike pictures...

         Progress on the project; the spindles on which the spherical magnet will be wound is now finished and mounted on the aluminum sphere. On the next convenient Saturday I venture to the Raleigh landfill for a fresh crop of microwave oven transformers. And early next week I get parts from the physics department machine shop that will make it possible to start putting together the microwave circuit from the magnetrons to the pressure sphere. If you want to see more done faster, better, and with more style, feel free to contribute to this unfunded research. Currently it depends on my taking out student loans. My current debt is considerably more than the total I've ever earned. OUCH! This does make it possible to give the idea away into the common domain in the manner of pure research.     

August 15: Now the complete score and synth recording of the newly completed Aditya Hridayam for oboe, violin and piano composed for Joseph and Mary Kay Robinson is on the Music page. Also, Imagine Music has just published Nocturne and Minuet and For Those Who Fell: A War Memorial for Jazz Band. As a result, those scores are no longer available for free download here.

    I've taken up lab space with Dr. David Aspnes here at NCSU at the Centennial Campus and will post pictures soon on an SMC lab page.

July 14: Much progress! 44 capacitors are en route, big-ass sparks to follow. Two aluminum hemispheres are on hand now, 22" across and 3/8" thick, hit 'em with a stick and they ring for a couple of minutes. If the physics don't work then I'm a percussionist. Also have started stockpiling power supplies, have been coating 20 helical antennas with ceramic, and am crunching the numbers on the big complex magnet I'll be winding. Thank God for eBay.

May 14: Now have the complete synthesized recording of a new piece for flute and piano, the Govinda Sonata, on the music page. And yes, the Govinda in question is the Ideal Flute Player of all time, Sri Krishna.....This new piece was written between early March and May 11.

May 7: Exams finished(May 5 for me). Today added the live performance recordings from the Duke recital of March 31 to the Music page. I have the synth recordings of both the nonet and orchestral versions of Der Jammervock on the Music page, not including the baritone part yet. My singing isn't quite up to the challenge so still looking for a good vocalist. This may be my best piece yet, give it a listen.....Oh, and see the Cure for War and my favorite mantras on the Spirituality page.

 April 4: Had a wonderful concert at Duke Friday March 31, the first all-Bill recital in 22 years. Here's the program. Met some interesting people from the audience and if all goes well, there will be more of my music heard at Duke. The program was five of my 11 solo violin sonatas.

February 25; Now at last! Proposal for Research: Spherical Microwave Confinement. It's most definitely a work in progress--this is the Fifth Edition and about as many titles over the last couple of years. Do let me know what you think, always eager to hear feedback on something so speculative. Construction should begin this summer.

October 25, 2005

 Just got a letter from Social Security disclosing all my reported wages from the first in 1970 to the end of 2004: I think you will find it amusing. Please to click on the link!

October 1, 2005:

         Oh, and I just wrote a sharp-tongued letter to my alma mater Phillips Academy, Andover (the same prep school  that George HW, George W, and Jeb Bush stained with their presence) that the alumni Bulletin didn't dare print....

background mandalas by  Massood Taj