The last I posted about Eurovision over here, I was commenting on how full of epic win the Russian entry was last year. I speak, of course, about Buranovskiye Babushki. I recommend that you see for yourselves just how adorable those grannies are.

But this year, Ireland's Ryan Dolan... or rather, his team -- takes the cake.

The team have got ALL the drums I can play and want to play the most -- bodhrans, taiko, bass drums. And I'm not even going to mention that Colm Farrell (one of the bodhran players) is eye candy like many others say. My eyes were fixated on the drumming throughout.

And now this reminds me...

These are times when I wonder at the simple bodhran playing I am able to do. I've long yearned to thunder rhythms of joy to many, many people. Yet there isn't much to my stage demeanour... unless you count childlike abandon, impromptu dancing and twirling as good stage demeanour. And I don't know if I have much of an audience either. I guess that can be fixed, but what's worse is that there's no one I can accompany (and no one who can accompany me). Bodhran players are rare in these parts, and because of this, I find myself rather out of place.

(P.S.: Triskele, I wish you were active on Newgrounds now.)

For those of you who don't know what it is: the Newgrounds Audio Deathmatch (NGADM) is a yearly knockout audio tournament between the best 32 composers of the year. Auditions will be held starting July and any user on the Audio Portal can join. For each round in the knockout tournament, participants have two weeks to come up with a brand new original song (any genre is welcome). The songs will be scored on their relative strengths and weaknesses.

It's the Audio Portal's biggest yearly highlight. Every song from every participant is given a rather detailed review, and considering it is known far and wide in the Audio Portal, you get quite a bit of recognition from it!

I landed third place in the 2012 NGADM, and it was quite the experience.

Now I know it's a bit early for me to spill out any thoughts on this year's NGADM, but I think it's right for me to say so beforehand.

Count me OUT of this year's NGADM.

Reason being: this'll be the period where I must get adjusted to the world of work, i.e. post-university life. The many preparations I may have to do might overwhelm me and take me away from the time I would otherwise use to finish my songs. In addition, I would like to concentrate on perfecting the songs I already have: Kingdom of Herts' debut album is projected for release this year, and I also have a personal debut album I'm working on.

However, I will likely be out for blood in the 2014 NGADM, so be warned!

Those of you looking to hear the WIP and Reject Reel for Peter Satera's NG Audio Portal group can now hear it right here. Comments will be much appreciated! Satera has put in a lot of comments himself -- but now I'd like to see what you can pick out, what you like and what needs improving. So take a stab at these songs! :D

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Side note, I made a Cathode Raybots boss. The difficulty level is 2.5. Tell me what you think!

I do hope to make a few more after today's exam paper. ^_^

I have three papers this week, all relatively heavy ones, but I guess that's one gets when he sits for the Law Society exams. At any rate, I am doing my best, for myself as well as to help others, and I look forward to sharing some new content (hopefully) when this exam's over. I do know that Merlyne, myself and the rest of Kingdom of Herts might be meeting after Friday 3 May for recordings, so I'm looking forward to that. <3

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PeterSatera has started a Facebook group for WIPS from the Audio Portal users. If you have any works in progress you'd like listened and reviewed speedily and thoroughly, this is an additional option to the Review Request Club and Work in Progress thread.

The idea behind this is to make a demo reel -- call it a reject reel or work in progress reel if you wish -- and have it showcased either on Soundcloud or YouTube in the style of a radio show, fading out where the unfinished track ends. Each reel will be scrutinised and each piece will be commented upon. The idea is also to constantly gain inspiration from other members and their reject/WIP reels, so in a sense, it helps us grow as composers.

If you have a reject/WIP reel that you'd like thoroughly reviewed, do feel free to join us on that FB group.

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I've been drawing a lot lately, mainly as relief from exam stress. In addition to the two drawings of the Flash game version of myself, I am currently working on a point commish for DreamForecast. On DeviantArt, I mean.

This is what it looks like so far, and the Muro stage is barely finished. When the time is right I would like to give it a good Photoshopping. If you have an unstable browser like I do, I advise you against watching Redraw to trace my strokes: it has crashed Firefox for me on slower processors and on faster ones. But long story short, that drawing is of one of DreamForecast's OCs, Pendleton.

After this drawing, I'm going to make use of layers a lot more. I've only recently learnt how each layer can bring out the foreground/background more, and that was after having made the mistake of drawing everything on the same layer several times...

Everyone, the cover of Sleep Wrapped in Love has scored THIRD PLACE in the Newgrounds Audio Portal 10th Anniversary Contest!!

Many thanks to all who listened, commented and reviewed! I'll be expecting reviews from the judges soon.

That having been said, congrats also to ForgottenDawn (1st), SineRider (2nd), SilverPoyozo (4th), SourJovis (5th) and jpbear (6th).
PLEASE LISTEN TO THEIR ENTRIES, THEY'RE AWESOME! Special place in my heart goes to SilverPoyozo for making a cover of Sea of Grass, one of my background music pieces.

It seems I've been racking up combos of 3rd place lately. Doesn't help that my stage name is TROISnyx... :P

In other news, I've got exams next week.
*groan*

There's a little improvisation I made earlier today on bodhran and bells, in the style of a ceremonial dance. Admittedly, I love how it's turned out, but it's not the most polished.

...Should I share this thing?

Shortly before the stroke of midnight 12 April, my birthday, I noticed that I had broken the 150 mark of supporters, and that number's growing slowly.

Thanks for sticking around, all of you. You guys are awesome. <3 I'll say, having you lot with me is a great gift in and of itself.

In other news: I have finished my submission for the NG Audio Portal 10th Anniversary contest. I made a cover of Sleep Wrapped in Love by Halcyonic Falcon X. I wanted to add more, because I knew there was sincerity in the song. The final result would be rather simplistic too, just like the original -- and she's appreciated it a lot. I'm grateful.

You may listen to it on Newgrounds or on YouTube, whichever floats your boat.

And speaking of the NG Audio Portal 10th Anniversary contest: I will be listening to the originals and the covers, and reviews will be coming from me shortly -- particularly for pieces I am more adept at reviewing. Please do not ask me to review dubstep or hip-hop or rap, I am ZERO in those genres. I'll gladly handle all rock/indie, other EDM, classical and miscellaneous submissions to the best of my ability.

Once again, thanks to all of you for all the advice you've given, for the support, and just for being there. It means a lot to me -- and I mean it.

I would like as many of you as possible to respond to this question in the comments. It'll be very much appreciated.

When it comes to recording live I only have a bodhran, ankle bells and a bracelet to punctuate the rhythm even further, and vocals. Please, can you name me a song that you can reasonably see done ONLY with these few things that I have?

I'll weigh all your suggestions and if I find any ideas, I'll throw mine into the pool, and pick one for my next major piece. : )

Surrexit Dominus vere, alleluia, alleluia!

Hey everyone, how have things been? It's Easter Sunday and I'm truly glad and grateful to be back. We've a lot of catching up to do, and I've got a few submissions to work on for NG. : )

I hope that in the days and weeks to come, I may share the insurmountable joy I have in my heart.

T.

It's Palm Sunday today, the start of Holy Week, and only one more week till Easter. You know what this means as far as my NG activity is concerned:

ONE MORE WEEK OF INACTIVITY, AND I WILL BE BACK TO FULL ACTIVITY ON EASTER SUNDAY.

Step has brought the NGAP 10th Anniversary contest to my attention, and I will be taking part in this. I will be beginning work on my submission next Sunday.

As for how I am able to begin work: Christo (Merlyne) has helped me get the systems back up and running with a secondhand PC. Those of you who follow me on Facebook will know this piece of news already. But to explain further, this is what was done:

1) Take a secondhand Acer Aspire 3690 which you won from an eBay auction for an affordable amount.
2) Insert previous DDR2 RAM into the current RAM slots, bringing the RAM up from 1GB to 2.5GB.
3) Do a straight hard drive swap so that the PC now runs on Windows 7, instead of Windows Vista. All programs from the previous computer would be there too.
4) Uninstall most of the HP software, since I won't be using it.
5) Nuke FL Studio. No, I mean it. Merlyne and I nuked FL Studio just so that it would run fairly smoothly. I say fairly, because while I can run most of my projects on FL Studio, I cannot run two files very well: Terre des Hommes Libres (yes, this song is too heavy for this computer) and Version 1 of Letters from the Journey to Stonyhurst, which I'll be putting up with my unfinished works after Easter.

In other news, I'll be recording with Kingdom of Herts on Monday, and we'll be throwing a few surprises in. I really, really can't wait! :D

Well, that's it from me for now. Before I take leave, thanks so much for all your support, and for checking in on me, either on NG, Facebook, Twitter or Skype. I appreciate this very much, you have no idea how <3

Happy and blessed Palm Sunday to all who observe it, and I'll see you guys later.