Two days ago I performed my first festival ever. What a great idea it is to bring people out in the fresh air to enjoy their neighborhood and music together. After this year's long awaited spring and the transformation from white to green this past Saturday in Somerville was awesome! 

My set up was this: Behringer Ultratone amp, which worked beautifully for this setting. Nice and clean for keyboard and vocals. My keyboard was connected to the amp through phones output, since they don't have Line output in my keyboard. Still the signal was loud and clear. I used one Mackie MR5 reference monitor as a stage monitor on a stand. It doesn't go very loud but was just enough for a solo performer. 

It was nice to see a city worker, who happen to be passing by, staying to listen by my stage. It was also lovely to see children dancing, people on bicycle or walking their dog, listening, smiling, interacting.

Here is some more awesome music. These artists have been around for a while. Enjoy! and if you like it, go ahead and share and have others enjoy it too!

Alabama Shakes (US)

Sia (Australia) 

Stromae (Belgium) 

Sela Suh (Belgium) 

Boy (Switzerland/Germany)

There are so many great artists out there and it's always fun to stumble across some of them. Let me introduce here some of them. 

Victoria Hanna, Israel
Victoria Hanna's music is a product of her fascination and exploration of the Hebrew language. It is believed the sound of every letter holds a mystical power. This is a beautiful setting of Hosha'ana, a rain prayer.  

Emily Loizeau, France
Everything comes together so well in this performance, her voice, playing, songs and Loizeau's beautiful spirit. 

George Ezra, UK
At only 21, his deep vocals and quirky melodic gestures that makes it fun to listen to. 

Tune Yards, USA
Creative looping. Merrill Garbus is an uncompromising artist. Interesting rhythms and strong vocals.  

Starting a new project can be a shot in the dark. Building something from scratch is not easy but nurturing a project you strongly believe in is empowering and is my motivation but I am discovering new things about the singer-songwriter profession everyday by reading websites, blogs, consulting with other musicians, watching documentaries about how other musicians have started their career. In times, I find myself wanting to move the wheels forward quicker but I realize things take time, and that good things take longer to cook but at the end there is a yummy stew. 
I try to keep up with what I have to do- improving my writing skills, my musicianship, learning from the pros. In the youtube age, the latter has also become much more accessible. You can choose to watch whatever you'd like whenever. While developing all that, ideas for more songs are popping like mushroom (creativity brings more creativity). There are plenty of materials to draw from, as life is always surprising and exciting when you look at the right places. Some of my friends know that after our meeting they might get an email from me with a new song  shortly after (yes, that had happened a couple of times).
Now, there are lots of decisions to be made about the next steps; should I start working on EP (half an album) or LP (full length) album? Mmm, on the other hand, I should probably finish writing my dissertation paper, first.. (I know I should).