Learning Claris FileMaker

I'm a singer. I love how songs can speak across boundaries of culture and time, bringing people together in a moment of powerful shared emotion.

Every aspect of a song is important — including the melody, harmony, and rhythm — but more than anything, I care about the lyrics — that is, what a song has to say.

That's why I sing: to tell a story.

There’s just one small problem. I sing in Spanish, for a primarily English-speaking audience.

I'm captivated by the beauty and variety of popular songs from South America, such as pasillos from Ecuador, bambucos from Colombia, and merengues from Venezuela.

While I work hard to convey the distinctive sound of this repertoire — which combines African, Indigenous, and European elements — I also want people to understand the poetry it sets to music.

Each story should hit them right in the heart. The question has always been: how?

For years, I printed translations of my songs and distributed them before each show.

However, performance venues typically turn off the lights when a show starts, so audience members had to study the words before we began — and even then, they had trouble remembering what they read.

I knew there was a better way.

Fortunately, I’m also a FileMaker developer.

I create custom apps that solve unique business problems.

One day I realized that the answer was right at my fingertips: I just needed to make the connection between my two worlds.

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Read more about it on the blog post