hey Chu! Congratulations. I'll check in with a couple of musicians I dance with here and get back to you!!

Samba Rocks and Heals!!! Mo'Le

Hey Chu,
Ok... so here it goes. First, you probably already know Robert Schoville, but he's got the most abundant Samba resources in Madison WI. He plays in Samba Pa Ti and a number of other projects and I'm sure you can find him. I believe he's got a batteria in Madison called the Handphibians.
Regardless...

Tune your cavaquinho to the Off to the Races: DGBD
That's standard tuning even though there's a ton of ukelele tuning on the web that says its cavaquinho.
I also have a cavaquinho and found some chords on the web:
www.sfmpb.com/cav/cavchor...pendium.html
www.cifras.com.br/cifra.asp

I hope this helps! If you have any other resources that you've found post 'em back because I could use em!
~G.

I'd start practicing pressing your index finger in front of one fret and plucking the string, then on the same string, next fret up, pressing your middle finger down and plucking the string, then your ring finger. As you hear that those notes are clear, move to the nest string up and do it again. Start trying to pluck strings to do a scale. Then, by the time the book of chords arrives, you'll have some blisters on your fingers to begin.

Hey, Everyone - I play cavaquinho, too. Have you seen FolkReps instruments? They make Portuguese traditional instruments. One of my cavaquinhos has old-world machine head tuning pegs that are really different. I also have a 6-string and a couple other Portuguese instruments. You can see a lot of cool instruments if you go to Bartt.net (that's my site, and I put a link to FolkReps).

I thought I'd piggy-back on this thread before starting a new topic for this question...

I'm interested in learning cavaquinho, but before I go out and buy one I was wondering whether or not it would be possible for me to just restring/retune my ukulele? Or are the two instruments too different? Can anybody help?