IT'S DONE.

I started on Tuesday the 5th and ended today, the 16th -- with a few breaks in between, due to tiredness, tight chests, and Windows 8 being a general pain in the rear. On the Audio Forums I mentioned that Windows 8 gave me THREE BLOOMING BSODS IN ONE HOUR when I was running FL Studio. In addition, there are MIDI controller problems when I run FL on Windows 8 -- so I did this piece in a rather flustered manner, with two operating system changes in between: Windows 7 to Windows 8, and back to Windows 7.

But all of that would probably go over your head by now, so I leave you with this.

My Round 1 submission is called Oceans Wide. I hope you all enjoy it.

All the best to everyone taking part. Now I know the deadline is tomorrow, so between this evening and tomorrow I expect a lot of people will be posting submissions. In fact, at the time of writing, only two of us in Group O (myself included) have posted submissions. I look forward to hearing whatever comes up. Now with regards to my own song..... I did my best with the composition and mixing. Seán was not only patient in having me use his computer, but also told me that once a piece is done, it's best to leave it as done. I could go tweaking it for eternity and never be satisfied, and since for all intents and purposes the deadline is tomorrow, I'd best not do it.

--------------------------------

NGADM aside, with Seán's help, I've started a bit of a gamer's collection. Not much, but it's a start, I suppose.

There are games in all these platforms that I enjoy, and it took Seán and me a few months, but it's coming along quite nicely. At the time these photos were taken I was playing Kingdom Hearts II, in anticipation for Kingdom Hearts II.5, which is coming out in Europe this December. These photos, that you see above, are top-middle-bottom shots of a storage solution... in my bedroom. I'm slowly turning into a geek. (In Seán's room you would instead find loads and loads of books, and tall bookcases to go with them.)

The PlayStation 3 came bundled together with my phone, and over time, Seán bought the Super Nintendo, PlayStation 1 and PlayStation 2 for the nostalgia. The PlayStation Portable was gifted to me by a friend from my university chaplaincy, and the Game Boy Colour and Game Boy Advance were passed on to me by a friend of a friend, cleaned and put back to good use.

To read about how this collection came together, here's the Tumblr post on it.

Seán isn't much of a console gamer; his preferred platform is the PC, so while I content myself with the titles I have in the photos, he plays vintage games, or remakes thereof. Oh, and the occasional Star Trek game. On occasion Seán and I try to compete with each other playing Super Mario Bros., but that's about the only multiplayer title you'll find in my room. If there's anything we want to play together otherwise, we take turns. Or if it involves Kingdom Hearts or anything similar, Seán just... watches me play and asks me many questions (as any observer to a game would). I do enjoy it. ^_^

Now, I am going to take my week-long break from making music, because like others, I am going to need it.

To begin, I received news today that I have been selected to participate in the Newgrounds Audio Deathmatch, along with 63 others. My group, in particular, has me going against @Jimmypig, @ChronoNomad and @Guylee.

The highest scorer from this group gets to top 16, and this is going to be possibly my toughest contest yet. At any rate, I'll take this news as stoically as I can, and chip away at the song over the next two weeks. I have Kingdom Hearts, LocoRoco, a bit of Star Trek and various other things on Spotify playing in the background at different points of the day -- hopefully I may draw some inspiration.

Congrats to everyone who made it, and to everyone who decided to take a shot in the dark and audition -- it's a very brave thing to do.

---------

I recently hit 300 fans -- I think it was yesterday -- and it's lovely to have reached another small milestone. ^_^

It may not be much, but I'd like to put in a quick thank-you to everyone who has stood by me thus far. Thanks for the support, for the mixing advice, everything.

---------

Before I call it a day and decide on a piece of music to work on, I have a little something I'd like to share with all of you. You will likely not see this elsewhere.

Let's just say, despite being of Indian descent, I never wore a sari in my entire life... until not too long ago. Seán and I were invited to a wedding -- and in preparation for it, I was lost on what dress to wear (like any woman). So Seán suggested a sari, because he thought I'd look good in one -- and we spent goodness knows how long browsing catalogues, looking for the right one.

After three sessions with an Indian friend of Seán's, I was finally able to dress myself up in one. While I admit I do like how it looks, I will flat out say it's a pain to wear and walk in.

(*shakes fist at images not aligning to the centre*)

Alright. That's it. Tonight is celebration night; I shall not procrastinate for the next thirteen days. I'm looking forward to sharing my Round 1 song with you when it is complete!

Question 1: Are you taking part in this year's Newgrounds Audio Deathmatch?

Yes, I believe I am, and I auditioned for it. We'll see what happens. I'm just in it to see how I can overcome after having suffered so big a loss.

Question 2: Are you taking part in Game Jam 10?

That, I don't know. It depends on what I've got going on this weekend. While I have been known to participate in the midst of moving house just two years ago, I may not be able to do the same this time. I've got a weekend planned with friends, and whether I take part depends on what materialises.

Question 3: Why the dearth of works?

I don't know if I'm subconsciously saving them for the Audio Deathmatch. Perhaps I am. I am still writing, though -- and if you'd like anything to read coming from me, kindly visit the Writing Forums.

Microsoft OneDrive made a complete hash of my backing up. Windows 7 was giving loads of trouble and the only way to go about it was to back up all files and reinstall the OS. So I backed them all up on OneDrive, knowing it to have been reliable in the past.

Guess what, bar one file (specifically, the music used in the NG film Mario Plays Flappy Bird), all my files -- including FL Studio projects, soundfonts, samples, all that I had worked so hard on making over the last three years -- all are now gone and unrecoverable.

Yes, that also means all the Kingdom of Herts stuff, the works in progress of classic songs including Propter Te, Terre des Hommes Libres etc.

Turns out that no matter how long was spent doing it, OneDrive just completely failed to sync them all.

I am now not touching OneDrive with the end of a blooming beanpole.

I felt I needed to get this out of my chest as a sort of unburdening to the musicians among us, for this has been on my mind over the past few days.

From my pictures and videos here on NG as well as on YouTube, I think you can all deduce that I am at least "ambiguously brown," and certainly not white. That's fine by me. : ) I happen to be of Indian descent.

Now, let me make it clear that I'm not the least bit bothered about ethnicities, or even taking pride in ethnic origins. I was raised a second (possibly third?) culture kid, partly by the choice of my parents and partly by my own preference. I have next to no attachment to my ancestry... I've long seen myself as my own person.

Some of you will have at least heard or seen me play the bodhrán -- that Irish frame drum -- and at least attempt to play it well. I'll still admit this is my favourite drum, and trad music from along this side of the world tends to really beckon to me.

Okay, you may say, no problem! We've had unlikely people playing unlikely instruments. We've had taiko drummers of all ethnicities. We've had Norah Jones, the daughter of Ravi Shankar, excel as a jazz singer. Where's the problem in that?

Well I recently had someone remind me to take pride in being Indian, like how he took pride in his own cultural heritage. He asked (probably out of curiosity) if I never took interest in traditional Indian music.

I said no, I never did (and truth be told, I never will. It's just not my thing, at all.) My heart isn't in it at all. My mother once asked out of curiosity if I would be interested in this kind of stuff; I said no.

To which he replied, just because you study one music form in your childhood doesn't mean you would wind up in it forever.

Honestly speaking, if I had not received the musical education I had received -- which was classical piano under the Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music -- I wouldn't even have the musical skill I have today, let alone the style or the ethereal vocals. I wanted music that could be practical for me at all times. I sing in church, and I am an organist and percussionist whenever needed -- which basically doubles as the reason why I would want a classical education. As for my leaning towards British and Irish folk music... well, that comes with the territory, really. Plus the rules of tonality are almost similar, if not completely similar, to that which I had been taught. I picked up the bodhrán because a close friend of mine encouraged me to pick it up, in response to my complaints that I had urges to beat out a rhythm, but had no access to a drum.

As an artist, one expresses what is in one's heart. Yes, I'm probably going to raise a number of eyebrows coming out there with a bodhrán in a trad session in a pub, or a céilidh (a dance gathering), or somewhere else, just by being who I am. But I cannot let that hold me down. I'll never be English or Scottish or Irish or Breton by descent -- but in many ways I have gone against the grain of what I am expected to be, both musically and with regards to my ethnicity. Heaven knows if there are any dark-skinned bodhrán players out there. There are none on YouTube, at least none that I can see, apart from myself. Correct me if I'm wrong. But if I am correct, then let me be the first: there always has to be a first for everything.

Fact still remains that in my heart, I will always know that I'm not doing it for brownie points (pardon the pun!), or to attract people along the lines of "OH HEY LOOK AT HER SHE'S NOT IRISH BUT SHE CAN CERTAINLY ROCK IT" -- no, none of that. I do it because it's my passion, I love the mere sound of it, and I've been able to play and/or record personal stuff with it -- improvisations, hymns etc. A musician has to be passionate about what he plays in order to reach out to others in the deepest possible manner. This is my passion; I lean towards musical forms which are in no way associated with my presumed native culture at all.

I once confided in @Krash17 about the fact that I'm an unlikely bodhrán player, as well as my influences.

His response was simply: "Fight the power. Music is for everyone."

Tsukikanade is finally complete.

Oh it feels good to have an original submission actually dating to 2014 in my feeds. The loop started as a scribbling on a piece of paper just a few months ago. I thoroughly enjoyed making this, from sequencing to recording.

So can I say I'm out of my drought yet? I don't know. I hope this dry period will have an end in sight. This might just be the start.

There is a background story associated with Tsukikanade which I wrote a week or two back, contemplating what I was aiming to get across. You may download and read it here.

Hope you enjoy the music!

Tsukikanade and another secret audio submission are in progress. I am stoked to hear both of them.

It seems that I am now not short of instruments to use. On Saturday Seán and I travelled to York. For the Yanks among us, this is the original York, in East Yorkshire, England -- just making it clear.

Our last stop was a music shop (because there are no good music shops in Preston *grumble*). Seán had been planning to get a djembe for a few months now, and we collected it Saturday. We were pretty excited over the new drum that he had it slung under his arm, and was jamming on it through the streets of York, among the throngs of people there, and continued even atop the city walls! -- and without a care to what people thought too. I did keep telling him to tone it down...

I had a go on it myself when I was on the city walls.

At some point, I don't know when, I'd like to do a recording of it. Just an improvisation, much like the one I uploaded last year.

I haven't yet been able to put the full instrument family in one picture, but I've at least taken the drums. This is all of them, right here --

Between us, we have four bodhráns (18" standard, 18" tunable, 20" standard and 8") -- and the one on the right with the triquetra on it, which you often see in my user image, is mine. The rest are Seán's. Then there's the djembe and the bongos -- and I can safely say that I've had a go on all of them now.

Just the bodhráns. The 20" one in the centre is on the upper end of the scale -- and anyone getting a bodhrán these days would struggle to even find one above 18". The 20" belonged to Seán's late father. For a while it lay around with a broken skin, but Seán managed to reskin it in January. (And I am privy to the process; this is not at all easy.)

The other addition to the instrument collection is one that we got last month. Seán bought it for me as a present. I did mention over the Audio Forums and in an interview that I play the organ... well, we've now got an electric organ.

I have access to a pipe organ as well........ naturally, I don't have one of these at home. There's one in the church nearby, and I do play it on and off. I hope to post a photo of it soon.

So in total, what have we.... 4 bodhráns, 2 violins, 2 keyboards, 1 accordion, 1 concertina, 1 guitar, 2 tin whistles, 1 djembe, 1 pair of bongos, 1 organ... crikey that's a lot. And there probably will be more to come!

--------

On a side note, I have been working on a song, Tsukikanade (月奏) -- that's Japanese for "Chanting the Moon." The instrumental for it is nearly finished, and it's progressing really fast. The Writers' Guild is (and/or will soon be privy to) quite a detailed back story. I will leave it until the song is ready to be posted. Keep your eyes peeled.

I've recently been seeing to the formation of the NG Writers' Guild (or as I should properly call it, Writers of Newgrounds, or WNG).

In the interview by Asandir I wrote saying that I wasn't ready to contribute to the Writing Forums yet -- but something compelled me to start contributing to writing projects all of a sudden. My abstinence from actively seeking out the forums still applies until the end of June -- but it's still wonderful to be able to work with others on literature projects. It's been a while since I did stuff like this.

So what am I doing in the WNG you ask? I last wrote part of a horror story project hosted by Krash17. There are five of us working on it. With it I decided to not only rehash some story ideas I previously had, but also put it open for scrutiny and see how others would interpret them. Partly inspired by one of my previous songs, I wrote. There will likely be other pieces of lit coming from me in future... mostly along the lines of lyrics, as usual, but also prose, since I tend to enjoy spending my time writing long paragraphs about things.

If you're a writer of any kind -- poetry, prose, song lyrics -- and you would like to give any creative input, or reviews, or any other help possible, do join us here at the WNG.

(And I can honestly say that in keeping with my abstinence from the forums, I haven't visited that thread yet. But I have visited the profiles of the members involved, especially those of @Tremax and @Krash17. But there is one writer whom my eyes are set on for a project like this, someone who can bring some much-needed whimsical flair to this site. You know who you are.)

Friends, pardon me from posting ever so constantly over the last few days, but I have momentous news to share with all of you.

You see, Seán has a tradition of going down to Liverpool around his birthday, and so this year, he did the same, and he took me along.

Today while in Liverpool, at about 11:50, when we were out by the Albert Dock watching the river Mersey, I felt this unexpected agitation and a voice saying "I have never done this before......." And he got down on his knee and pulled out this ring and said, "Will you marry me?"

Let's just say it was a bit of a shock, but I was overcome with joy.

So now I am happily engaged.

We had a bit of a celebration not too long ago, and I still cannot fully describe this joy.

This is the first photo of us together, and it certainly is not particularly emotionally brilliant. But at the risk of sounding horribly corny, look how far we've come.