Meet Anthony Rodriguez | Music Composer

We had the good fortune of connecting with Anthony Rodriguez and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Anthony, how has your work-life balance changed over time?
To be honest, my work life balance is pretty much messed up. However, I do give my time for family even though I have to be in the studio writing music. There are certain times when I have to literally walk away from the studio to care for my family. I typically work increments in the studio with lots of breaks; comes with lots of sacrificing.

My day begins at 6:30 am. Since my wife works a 9-5, my schedule is more flexible; so she can sleep a little longer in the morning. Once I wake up, I’m getting my kids ready for school. One takes the school bus and my other two get dropped off by me shortly after.

I jump into the studio to continue working on unfinished work or sometimes starting a new production. So throughout the day I’m taking breaks to care for house responsibilities and simply running back and forth. At night when deadlines need to be met, I sometimes end my day at 3am to then get up at 6:30am.

Many people claim to have a great work balance life. But truthfully, to be great and aim for the highest peak of your craft — work balance doesn’t exist. We just try to be there for both family and work. The occasional day off here and there, including vacation; I’m still working by keeping my networking active and marketing. It’s pretty much 24/7.

I do believe with today’s tech we can do so much at the same time, really.

Alright, so let’s move onto what keeps you busy professionally?
I’m a pianist, music composer and mixer. These roles can to fruition by necessity. I have my home recording studio, Walk Sound Studio here in my home in New Jersey. And just always excited to work with people in creating their vision to a musical reality. Today I’m standing as a film composer and score mixer as well as music producer for modern recordings. I score to motion pictures for all sorts of projects, I’ve worked with many great people; and have my work in TV Shows such as, Juego De Mentiras from Telemundo, Sports shows on Fox Sports, music on Discovery + and more. There’s a feature film called “Ebenezer The Traveler” that is set to release in 2024. I worked with amazing director and songwriter Joe Valenti, and it was a great time.

Challenges of what I do is management of everything. It isn’t easy. One of my challenges is walking away from an idea in music that I truly love to another idea that actually was the best decision. Actually this challenge has helped to view music as a whole and not as one genre only type.

I only wish to be successful in all I do to give God the glory, for me and my family. And to leave a great legacy of greatness for my future generations.

Let’s say your best friend was visiting the area and you wanted to show them the best time ever. Where would you take them? Give us a little itinerary – say it was a week long trip, where would you eat, drink, visit, hang out, etc.
I would take them to a Chinese restaurant and pizzeria. Because we know only in NY/NJ these restaurants are the real deal!! Then take them to NYC to see the buildings etc.

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
I’m a spiritual person. And I give all thanks to my Lord, Jesus Christ. In this business, I’ve only got this far by having faith and prayer. Believing that I serve a powerful God that is bigger than any of my giants I faced in my lifetime. And of course the seasonal people that have taken part of me becoming who I am. And books that have helped me along the way, apart from the Bible, I’ve also read 48 Laws of Power which is a great book of how important people achieved success. There are many more books I’ve read but these are my top two currently.

Mentorship, I have one of my best friends that he’s an audio engineer Joshua Gerena. Because of us doing music for so long, I’ve seen him working on the studio mixing boards and what we call “in the box” which means, not using a a physical board to record music. And so, my responsibilities have taken a more in-depth role and for the last 2 years or so, I’ve had to deliver music mixed and mastered. One person that I admire is Junkie XL aka Tom Holkenberg. He scores and mixes his soundtracks him self. And I figured, if he can do it — I can do it too. Most recent movie The Flash, Benjamin Walfisch, is a composer and score mixer as well. It was night and day for me. I began mixing with the memory of seeing my friend work and just started trying to apply those same things to my music scores and more. Eventually I got obsessed with mixing and understanding that it all begins with the music process. And it actually helped me to make better music decisions. Mentors in my screen right now is the names I mentioned above and score mixer, Alan Meyerson and, Hans Zimmer. They’re are the core of what we music composers and score mixers do. They don’t need to ever introduce themselves that’s how legendary they are.

Website: www.AnthonyRodriguezOnline.com

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Image Credits
AR Music & Media