W Hotel - Union Square, NYC!

What an experience! I will never forget this event. It was like a scene right out of a movie. This event was so important to me that I even got my make-up done! I felt like a star.

First of all, I love New York! Any trip to New York is automatically a great one. When I arrived at the W Hotel, I couldn't believe that places like that really existed... The hotel had grass inside; Yes, grass! 5 estrelas! A "standard" hotel room was more luxurious than any other hotel room I have ever seen before. I met with so many wonderful people. I owe this night to Sra. Enca Melo, who took a chance on inviting me without ever having heard me before. She made me, Sr. Viriato and Sr. Silva (the guitarists who came to New York from Massachusetts and Rhode Island and missed a day of work just to accompany me) feel at ease throughout the whole event. This event was a "Starwood Hotels" promotion for Spain and Portugal and I represented Portugal. I met with people from Tap Airlines, various reporters, the Portuguese Ambassador for the United Nations, and many other people who were simply fans of Fado. I sang for about 40 minutes and it flew by so quickly. I couldn't believe it was all over. But when it was I received an invitation to sing at the United Nations in October! I was blown away. I was smiling so hard the whole night, my face started to hurt. After the event, I went up to Sr. Jose Silva's room to change clothes and I climbed out the window to see the view of Park Avenue (from the 19th floor) and it was beautiful with all of it's lights (from the buildings and traffic) and lightning behind the buildings from far away. It was the perfect way to end the evening. I had the time of my life. I will never forget this performance.

Provincetown!

On Friday night, after 8 hours on the road I finally arrived in Provincetown, Cape Cod, Massachusetts for their Portuguese Festival! It was about 2am and even though the whole town was asleep, it was beautiful. All you could see were dunes and stars. (I also saw 2 shooting stars!)

The next morning I woke up early, had breakfast outdoors and rented a bicycle to discover the town on my own. I stopped at The Pilgrim Monument were I ran up 60 ramps and 116 steps to see the breathtaking view of all of Provincetown. It was so great because I could hear the "castanholas" from the "rancho" dancing on one of the streets and I could see all of the Portuguese flags waving around the town and of course all of the boats and the ocean. I spent the rest of the afternoon going to shops and watching the Provincetown Portuguese Parade. At 7:30 it was time for the Fado event of the festival where the audience can enjoy a free performance and some wine on the waterfront. The performers included Celia Maria, Daniel Guerra, Tania DaSilva, Jose Carlos, Jorge Ramos, and I as fadistas and Manuel Leite, Jose Silva, and Viriato Ferreira on the guitars. Ricardo Farias of Radio Globo presented the show and of course it was thanks to Liliana De Sousa who organized the event that I participated in the festival. The event attracted a big audience of around 600 people and lasted about 3 and 1/2 hours. It was a wonderful evening.

After the show, I enjoyed the Bossa Triba and the Berkshire Bateria Samba who performed on the street and it was a great way to end the night. The musicians were amazing and had the whole crowd dancing. I've never seen anything like it. The trip was so much fun and I definitely recommend Provincetown to anyone that is looking for somewhere to escape to from their daily routine.

It's All In Your Head!!

Has anyone ever video taped you while you spoke and then when you watched it back you were surprised at how you sounded? You think to yourself, I don't sound like that! Well guess what: You Do!! That's kind of the dilemma I'm in at the moment. Yesterday I heard the final mix down of the 14 tracks I recorded a month ago. The guitars are beautiful, just perfect, and the sound quality is the real deal, and then I hear that thin, bright voice -- MY VOICE! I know I'm no Ana Moura or Norah Jones, but I would give my left pinkie for a little more depth in my voice. When I'm actually singing, I don't hear myself like I do when I hear it played back. I researched it and this is why...

According to Dan Berger, a MadSci Administrator, "when you hear your own voice, it's not being transmitted to your ear in the same way as it is to someone else's ear. When you hear someone else speaking, the sound -- after being shaped by the resonating cavities in the person's head -- travels through the air to your ear, where it is collected and focused onto your eardrum. The eardrum vibrates, vibrations are transferred to the middle ear, and from there to the inner ear where they are converted into electrical signals that travel to your brain. But when you hear yourself speak, most of the sound doesn't pass through your eardrum and may not pass through your middle ear. Instead, the sound is conducted through your skull bones and reaches the ear by direct transfer to either the middle or the inner ear. Furthermore, the sound you hear from your own voice is not shaped by the cavities in your head because it is transmitted directly by the bones of the head and never passes through the air in those cavities."