Well, after eagerly watching the weekly trending reports, I've finally received notification that TuneCore has been paid by a number of the end-user distributors, and that I can now download the accounting reports. Lo and behold, I've actually managed to make a bit of spare change from my musical dabblings.
My goal with the coin is to first pay off debt (always a good idea, especially in these, our modern times) then save up to purchase a real instrument.
Now which real instrument should I get? I've been geeking out over some of the MIDI guitar videos on YouTube. A new years resolution of mine was to learn guitar, and a MIDI device has the benefit of being applicable to far more than just guitar. But, at the same time, I do need a basic, or not so basic, MIDI keyboard controller, and I can imagine that they are far cheaper than the guitar variety.