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!

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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.

Being on the forums has made me a bit high-strung of late. Perhaps I ought to take a break and just concentrate on the art-making?

I understand that there are many of us who are passionate about what we stand for, some perhaps more than others. That can often manifest itself in highly-strung behaviour, often through the choice of words in responses. And I will openly and gladly admit that I haven't had the most clement choice of words either. This highly-strung nature is one of many things I'm trying to curb, and I really, really think I need to give the forums a break, say until June is over.

A quick note to Audio Forum regulars: when the auditions for this year's Audio Deathmatch or any other contest start, please do let me know -- I'll gladly post then. Until then, I'll only be responding to direct replies, or not responding at all. And I won't actively browse the forums either -- I think it best for my own good, and for others' good as well.

I do not mean this in offense towards any specific forum user -- in fact I think whichever side we're on, many of us are susceptible to this kind of nature.

Also, some of you may be wondering when the Sacred Moon cover will be out. I can't really give a date, I'm afraid. In fact, I can safely call the music 2/3 done, but the lyrics may need revisiting. Who knows, they may be entirely scrapped over and rewritten. Regardless, I'm slowly chipping away at it. Some of you have been seeing more drawings filling the gaps in my lack of audio submissions -- I do hope you enjoy them.

1) Because there are no .exe files for FL Studio 10 available on the Net that I can download, except on file sharing sites, which I do not want to go to.

2) Because I have recently had PC troubles: my Windows 7 has recently become corrupt, I've lost the product key, and I've recently downgraded to Vista, and I've had to reinstall the darned software.

3) Because it's been four months since I last posted a song on Newgrounds or even YouTube, and I've tarried on this next song for yonks. Sacred Moon and two other Zelda covers are in the works, in addition to loads of other original stuff I've had to put on the backburner for quite a while.

I'll be pretty blunt and say: this is my first day on FL Studio 11 and I haven't noticed many differences apart from aesthetic changes. But hopefully, with a little more exploration, they'll be made apparent to me.

The title says pretty much everything I need to say. At the time of writing, the interview is on NG's front page. Regardless, here is the link to said interview.

Enjoy. And I hope that this interview may strike a chord in many a heart, somehow.

First off, I just wanna say that it's a nice touch to see Tank Girl, Nene, Caxx (?) and other NG females on the background. They look awesome, by the way.

Second, I have nothing to offer on this particular Pico Day, but I have something in preparation for next year's Pico Day? possibly even 2016's or 2018's? The only reason why I am not sure about this is because we have to determine which year can be properly called Newgrounds' 20th anniversary. Yeah, I know right? Many of us haven't been on this site for that long, and NG is soon going to turn twenty.

This is something I've been meaning to share with all of you, and it's a work in progress at the moment.

It doesn't look anywhere near finished at the moment.

I and a few others at least are envisioning some sort of massive audio, art and animation collab for whenever that day comes, because it is going to be explosively awesome. There. The plans are out in the open; I'm not keeping my thoughts on the 20th anniversary secret anymore.

Tell me what you're thinking.

Hey everyone, Troisnyx here. My NG Lenten fast is complete, and it is Easter today.

This season brings great joy to me, and it is also a joy for me to be back. I actually logged in at midnight today, but on my phone -- and for some reason, Android doesn't support the Rich Text Editor. Oh well.

I spent Lent working on a cover of a tune from Kingdom Hearts II, writing, going out and about... I was away at Cumbria (which to us Britons is the Lake District) for the weekend of my birthday. I did log in once or twice on Skype, but then it just fell apart. The last three days before this -- Thursday, Friday and Saturday -- were overwhelmingly exhausting. This is what we know as the Triduum -- the three days leading up to Easter Sunday proper, and I sang during Masses and services for three days. A lot. My throat is sore, my chest is congested, and I am now in need of sleep.

Before I crash for the day, I'd like to share a few pictures.

Camping near Seascale, Cumbria. First time living out in a tent, with Seán no less! <3 Cooking was hard though. Everything we did was tepid, the wind was too strong, and we had trouble getting them lit.

One of my birthday presents, this one from Seán -- a glockenspiel. I've been playing quite a bit on this -- particularly Kingdom Hearts tunes, and someone thinks I'm living a rather sad life. On the plus side, for audio production, I don't have to rely on soundfonts anymore -- I have the instrument.

Those bongos are Seán's, and I had a go on them a few times. They're currently broken on one side, but we're trying to repair it -- Seán is optimistic he can repair it -- and hopefully after that, I may be able to use it for recordings as well.

By the way, you should see his workshop. Just saying.

This picture is the most recent -- this dates back to yesterday, before the Easter Vigil Mass. For the musically technical, those timps are tuned in C and G. I had three pieces to play, and let's just say, it was amazing. The first piece I did this was a setting of the Gloria (in excelsis Deo).

The drums resounded in praise, blood was rushing through my veins more than ever, my cheeks and neck were burning… and my friends sang in joyful chorus and the organ harmoniously blended in. Bells were rung, and it was an overall explosion of joy.

Side note, I can ride a bike now. Just about. I'm not roadworthy yet, but I'm slowly getting there.

Well, that's it from me for now. I'd better not procrastinate with my rest hours, now.

The season of Lent -- the 40 days of fast and abstinence before Easter -- begins tomorrow, Wednesday 5 March.

I have a good mind to keep the tradition that I had been keeping over the last two years and stay off Newgrounds for Lent. This time, I am including Sundays as well, unless something really important needs to be announced. I have been on NG nearly every single day for months on end, and while I enjoy the camaraderie, and oftentimes the material that gets shared here, it's time for me to take a bit of a back seat.

I'm aware that this means not being able to take part in contests, game jams, etc., including RealFaction's Art-Inspired Music Contest. I'm also sad that I haven't been able to give you folks much of a present before my absence, unlike last year. So it's going to be painstaking, but I've got to try and see what these forty days will bring.

I will pop in on Skype to say hi to the Audio Portal guys every now and then.

Now, Easter falls on Sunday 20 April. That also means I'm celebrating my birthday off NG -- some of you may know when the actual date is, but I shan't say a word here. I'll be back on NG on the 20th, likely at midnight BST.

* * *

On a side note, thanks to two wonderful people, I have now access to not one, but two MIDI keyboards! No, I won't be greedy and use both; I'll stick to one, thank you very much. I am really looking forward to using it.

* * *

I'm really sorry for the sudden news about my absence. Please keep me in your thoughts and prayers.

Yours,

T. x

First off, thanks for the pointers and support you've given me in the last post. I managed to borrow those timpani mallets today, and hand speed training is a GO.

* * *

There's something I wanted to share with all of you... it's not a song, but rather, what I experienced recently -- in fact, just a few days ago.

In addition to the bodhráns and the guitar I have in my possession, Seán and I unearthed a few more instruments that had not been played for yonks -- two accordions, a violin, a tin whistle and a MIDI keyboard. Nearly all of them had fallen out of tune, but I just wanted to draw a sound out of them. I picked up the violin and its bow, and began drawing it over just one string, and I just got lost in the motions of it.

"You'd make a good violinist, you," I was told.

I was deeply moved. That may have been true, but when contemplating a second instrument for me to learn when I was 12 years old, the common choices were the violin and the flute -- and I didn't want to play what everyone else played. I didn't want to fit a 'mould'. My favourite instrument was the same then as it is now -- the drum. I forewent the violin and the flute, knowing full well that I wanted to be my own person.

But that day, as I drew the bow over that old violin, there grew in me a desire to breathe life into any instrument I found... regardless of what it was. I wanted to play something. I still want to play something. I just don't know what...

I don't know if my dream of becoming a multi-instrumentalist will ever be achieved. But that little incident, I felt, was beautiful. I don't quite know how else to express it.