We recently connected with Adrian D’Souza and have shared our conversation below.
Adrian, so great to have you with us and we want to jump right into a really important question. In recent years, it’s become so clear that we’re living through a time where so many folks are lacking self-confidence and self-esteem. So, we’d love to hear about your journey and how you developed your self-confidence and self-esteem.
Confidence and self-esteem are developed by fostering the resilience to go through ups and downs in life and through practice sessions to the point where you get through the plethora of obstacles that are thrown your way and finally after devoted practice you come to realize you achieved what you once thought was impossible.
When you achieve what you once thought was impossible you begin to believe anything you put your mind to is possible. Your doubts start to vanish, your motivation increases, and you go the extra mile the next iteration around. This never ending cycle is repeated throughout one’s career as a musician so the more you participate in the journey the more your confidence and self-esteem develop.
Success is 80% mental and only 20% physical in most areas of life. In the music industry I’d like to think success is 90% mental and 10% physical because playing an instrument like an electric guitar and mastering it is more an intellectual and creative task than a physical one.
Thanks for sharing that. So, before we get any further into our conversation, can you tell our readers a bit about yourself and what you’re working on?
My name is Adrian D’Souza and I’m from Toronto, Canada. I’ve been a musician for primarily 21 years now, and 90% of that time was mastering the electric guitar. When I first started out as a pre-teen, the first four years I was focused on playing keyboard instruments before delving off into the electric guitar, and to this day I still like to incorporate synth sounds into many of my original and cover recordings.
The electric guitar is my passion and I like to think of it neither as a hobby nor a career but rather a lifeforce. It’s something I just have to do to keep going. I find it exciting because no other instrument sounds like it. A piano sounds just like a piano , a trumpet sounds just like a trumpet but the electric guitar is capable of so many different types of sounds and textures. Through the use of a good quality guitar, a pedalboard, and a decent amplifier I can get any sound out of my system from clean sounds, to edge of breakup sounds, to distortions and everything in between. Through the use of effects I can make my guitar sound like virtually any instrument.
I’ve been an avid Youtuber, an Indie Artist who produced on Bandcamp, and in recent times I started performing on Twitch livestream. I’ve taken a break from live performance to concentrate on creating a new setlist of songs which I call the “Performance Series”.
The “Performance Series” will be a collection of approximately 20 cover recordings on Youtube that I am working on as either a tribute to U2 (I consider myself somewhat of a U2 tribute guitarist) or a collection of cover songs by various rock artists. I will decide how I want to play it as I go, but the gist of the matter is the recordings in this series will be those that I’ll record and also master the practice of daily so that they can be performed at will at live gigs down the road.
I estimate the series to take me approximately six (6) years to complete, record, and master playing. Most of my career has been spent as a recording artist. I’d like to see myself in the future as a performing artist as well.
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?
The three most important skills to master in my journey are:
1) Setting aside time to learn new material and practice it. This is the most important. Without material or time to practice it’s hard to accomplish anything as an artist. You really need to make practice a part of a routine in your daily life if you want results. It can’t be hap-hazard. Better to practice 45 min 3x a week and stick to it than to practice 12 hours a day and quit after a month.
2) Once new material is learned, set aside time to work on recording it. Once you learn new material and get good at playing it , it has to be recorded. Recording is a skill in itself , different from playing an instrument. Getting good at recording takes an appreciation of learning the software tools needed to do the tasks, creating multiple takes if necessary, and realizing that how you think you sound when you hear yourself in the room and how you actually sound when you record yourself are two completely different things.
3) Developing resilience so that no matter how many setbacks come your way you are ready to get back up on your feet again as quickly as possible. If I had to pick one quality that separates people who succeed from those who don’t it would be resilience. It’s not a quality that can be bought or manufactured, but a quality that must be developed. Resilience comes from overcoming setbacks. So setbacks in music are not necessarily a bad thing as they can help you skyrocket your resilience, or ability to bounce back and gain momentum once again to go after your goals.
Thanks so much for sharing all these insights with us today. Before we go, is there a book that’s played an important role in your development?
I certainly enjoyed reading the book “Awaken the Giant Within” by Anthony Robbins back in the day.
The book had many golden nuggets of information:
1) When it came to health for example Mr, Robbin’s stated various scientists couldn’t even agree on the basics. While one scientist said doing this or that would help you live a long life, another scientist would say doing the same thing would kill you. They were scientists, but they couldn’t even agree on the basics. So Mr. Robbin’s stated instead of reading up on science to determine which course of action you should take, pick a role model in life who is achieving what you want to achieve and copy that person. And I think that is ingenious.
2) Commit to C-A-N-I. Constant And Never Ending Improvement. I never worry about if I fall backwards in my skills in music , life, or finance, because everyday I work on improving those areas.
3) Write down your goals and have a clear vision of where you want to go. I am already envisioning the next ten years. As I stated earlier, I wish to record the “Performance Series” I talked about, perform it live on Twitch as I develop it, and then go out into the world and perform it live at large venues in my city and beyond. The difference between just having a dream and actually making it happen, lies in goal setting with actual deadlines.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.AdrianDSouzaRocks.com
- Instagram: www.Instagram.com/u2adrian1000
- Youtube: www.Youtube.com/u2adrian1000
- Other: www.electrical-storm.bandcamp.com
Image Credits
Adrian D’Souza
