Meet Bruno Oliveira

We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Bruno Oliveira a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Bruno, so excited to have you with us today, particularly to get your insight on a topic that comes up constantly in the community – overcoming creativity blocks. Any thoughts you can share with us?
Being a composer for more than 20 years I have experienced many moments of creativity block in my journey. Sometimes, there are moments that life hits hard and factors that are out of our control may impact our creativity. For this type of creativity block there is only one solution: time. The other type I realized, after much observation in myself and in my fellow musicians, come from the lack of self-confidence.

For us musicians it is very common to be caught seeking approval and validation being it from your bandmates, followers, fans, collaborator and yourself. And this anxiety led by this willing to prove you are “good enough” is what leads to the mind paralysis. In order to beat this type of block we need to remove our ego from the equation. As a composer that be translated into “make it mindless”. It is our own judgement and self critique that blocks the creative flow, so if you want to make your creative flow goes again you need to accept that your work will not be perfect and not please everyone. You need to be able to rely in the instincts and don’t use your art as an instrument of vanity.

Great, so let’s take a few minutes and cover your story. What should folks know about you and what you do?
I am a composer, orchestrator and guitarist and I am lucky to have been involved in many beautiful and exciting creative process along my music journey. I grew up as a heavy metal guitarist in Brazil. There, I had the opportunity to share festival stages in the same night with great groups such as Sepultura, Dead Kennedys, Sodom, etc, playing for more than 9.000 people in one night in the Festival Abril Pro Rock. Around 2012 I gradually shifted my focus to composition and writing music for media. I graduated from Berklee College of Music with a degree in Film Scoring and a minor in Video Game Scoring in 2019 and since them I’ve been focusing on building my career as a media composer. But life is always surprising: Recently I had the opportunity to collaborate with some of the greatest metal bands in the world, but this time as an orchestral arranger for names such as NorthTale and James LaBrie (from Dream Theater), which for me meant a lot because I was able to mix heavy metal and orchestrations, 2 contrasting styles that I now can confidently say I dominate.

Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?
I think my best quality or skill was my sense of purpose. I always were true to my heart’s desire in learning and focus what I am interested. That genuine impulse gave me strength during the hard moments and direction on unclear moments.

Another skill I think was important is that we cannot deny the impact of technology in our modern age. Virtually all professions are upgrading to an hybrid form of computer/software assisted version and if we are not interested into evolve together, we will loose opportunities.

What is another quality and habit that I think gave me a good background was the interest for various subjects such as history, sciences, arts, languages, philosophy, etc. You cannot imagine how these can impact your life and work in so many ways. Besides, it brings you out of your bubble and is also a great way to have connections with outher people.

All the wisdom you’ve shared today is sincerely appreciated. Before we go, can you tell us about the main challenge you are currently facing?
Us, film composers tend to dive too hard in our work and we tend to sometimes overlook people around us. I recently had many moments that I had to focus hard in a project and I couldn’t enjoy the present moment, my family and friend. We have to learn to value the present moment, don’t dwell in the past and don’t think only in the futre. Life is now and we must learn how to balance work and life so we can spend this precious time with who we care and doing the things that matters to us!

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