We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Anthony Cozza. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Anthony below.

Alright, Anthony thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Can you talk to us about how you learned to do what you do?

My parents instilled in me from a very young age the skills of how to learn. How to find the information, how to interpret the information, and most importantly, how to practice applying it. I was not able to take professional lessons when I first started playing guitar at 13 years old with my Fender Squire Strat and little 15-watt amp, but I did grow up in the early YouTube and guitar tab era. You could find great tips and tricks from random people on the internet or attempt to decipher guitar tabs from Ultimate Guitar. Between these resources and listening to records, it was a trial-and-error process until I was able to make sounds that didn’t scare the dog and write songs that were at least tolerable to listen to. As the great Hans Zimmer says, music is about the essence of play. That’s how I continue to learn and grow as a musician and composer, just playing around and experimenting with instruments and sounds until something exciting happens and opens the door to a new little adventure.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I am a film composer and sound designer. With over a dozen films completed in my very short time in this career, I have found a new creative path that I am excited to explore. The ability to create sounds and build sonic environments fascinated me at an early age. Especially when it came to the music and sound in movies. I distinctly remember being (and still am) obsessed with the music and sound effects from the Star Wars prequels. The sounds of the podracers or the explosions from the ships all surrounded with John Williams incredible score was impossible to resist. This fascination ultimately led me deep down the rabbit hole writing progressive metal and ambient music and has now taken a new direction and dropped me here; writing scores for films.

For you, what’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative?

Building a sonic world. Being able to take the listener out of whatever room they are sitting in and teleport them into something fantastic. That’s what draws me to music and keeps me coming back to some of my favorite songs and albums. As I mentioned, I love Hans Zimmer’s mindset of musical playfulness, which lends itself to an extremely rewarding and fun approach to composing. When you are playing you can build yourself doors or roads to explore that open and lead to sounds or melodies you may have never considered before.

Have any books or other resources had a big impact on you?

Paul Graham’s essays on work have been massively influential on how I approach the work of music composition and running a business. I came across them by accident while wading through a sea of business self help articles. The two that I found discuss the importance of determining good and bad work efforts, and emphasize the importance of following your curiosity. In today’s “nose to the grindstone” world, this stood out to me as a complete stark contrast, and is still something I have to consciously remind myself of. In a feeble attempt to capture the thoughts of a much better writer than I, his advice was to follow what you are interested in, what sparks your curiosity. This in turn, may open doors or opportunities you otherwise would not have even thought to look for. After picking up guitar I did not think I would end up doing music for movies, rather in a strange string of events following my overwhelming curiosity to see if I could tell stories with lyricless music I ended up here in this exciting new career.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://anthonycozzamusic.wixsite.com/acmusicandsounds
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/anthonycozzamusic/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@AnthonyCozzamusic-movies
• Other: Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/49xhO2ycPKPa7jRdgJfLA2?si=93-x6JZRRJu_NgzLI1SwCg

Image Credits

Tyler Smith @cartographler
Van VerHoeven @vanverhoeven