Los Angeles based composer Amanda Jones never expected to be nominated for an Emmy. The singer-songwriter and musician has been pursuing her love of creating music for a decade. But the Vassar graduate didn’t step into Hollywood’s music industry until 2015, and she hasn’t looked back once. Learning under the tutelage of venerated composers Hans Zimmer and John Powell, Jones diligently set herself to learning, and doing, as much as possible to carve out her space in the industry. Says Jones, “Once I set my sights on it, I had a razor-sharp focus to see it through.”
That focus has paid off. Jones has not only scored such as Lena Waithe’s breakout hit, Twenties, but now she’s made history. Amanda Jones is the first Black woman to have the distinction of being nominated for an Emmy Nomination in the category Outstanding Music Composition For A Documentary Series or Special (Original Dramatic Score). Her original score for Apple TV+ docu-series Home, episode “Maine” garnered Jones consideration for not just the Emmy nomination she did receive, but in four additional categories.
That Moment In had the wonderful opportunity to talk to Amanda Jones about creating music for Home, her fierce fight to bring more diversity to Hollywood’s music industry, and smashing expectations.
Could you tell us a little about the show Home?
Amanda Jones: The series [Home] as a whole is all about architecture and the owners of these really beautiful homes that are very unique. The way it worked was Apple TV and the creatives paired up a composer with each episode because every episode [of Home] is so distinctive.
What was your episode like?
AJ: For my episode, “Maine” it was set in this wintery location and the two homeowners Anthony and Julia were these really cool, young, hip, art students. They built this home from scratch by themselves. It employs a traditional burn board method which is a Japanese practice for creating the siding of your home by literally burning wood until it’s charred. It actually preserves it for hundreds of years! It’s pretty incredible. It’s such a stark contrast [to the rest of the house] they call it the “soot house” because it chars the wood black, [so] you have this striking black home set in this Maine, wintery, snowy, setting. 
What was your inspiration for the music you composed in “Maine”?
AJ: So, in terms of inspiration, the setting was everything. There’s the Maine setting, but there’s also where [Anthony] learns that tradition [burn board] practice in Japan. So there’s two settings that we travel to in that episode. The first brief was to create two sonic distinctive sounds for Maine, where their home is, and then separately for Japan where [Anthony] learns the burn board method and meets his mentor for the first time. So yeah, that’s kind of how I started off. First I was defining those two settings, those two sonic spaces, and then in between, it’s like filling it in with a paintbrush and connecting the ideas.
What did that sound like?
AJ: For the Maine setting it was very much a woodland setting so I was using acoustic guitars, my voice, really chill drums and bass and string players. And alternatively, for the Japan setting the music is very in-your-face. There [are] synths that are more aggressive and it’s more angular in a lot of ways. The drums are a lot more upfront and the coloring and palette of the instruments we’re using are different.
In terms of instrumentation it was very much a band instrumentation, so it was like guitars, bass, synth, piano, some string players, using my voice, and drums. It’s very fun! It’s kind of like a cool, unconventional score. It’s like a mixture of score meets songwriting. The creatives really wanted me to lean to a songwriter sensibility for [Maine’s] score.
So Apple reached out to you specifically?
AJ: Yeah! The Apple TV creatives were very intentional about which composer they wanted to pair up [with each episode] for a certain vibe. So they came to me wanting a songwriter sensibility [for Maine]. It’s kind of youthful and fun and weird and unique!
How do you describe your sound? Are there any underlying themes or aesthetics in the music you compose?
AJ: I think the throughline is when I work with creatives I have really honest conversations at the beginning, letting them know that I want to do something different. That I want to have fun with the music and play with expectations! I don’t want to be too prescriptive, [like] there’s very cliche ways of making sad music with string [instruments] or [the] piano. I feel like there’s a million [other] ways to convey sadness or happiness or other feelings between different settings. I also do weird stuff with my instrument[s] deliberately. Maybe I’ll use mallets to hammer on the top of my guitar towards the nut and it sounds like you’re plucking like a piano string. It creates a sort of texture that you wouldn’t expect for just any setting. I like to get weird and just play around with sounds and textures. 
What motivates and inspires you as a composer?
AJ: Just, like, day to day [life]. I’m inspired by every single moment, which I know sounds funny! But I feel like most artists probably feel this way. Even visual artists or writers. But yeah, I’m kind of always “drinking in” my world. I think every day and moment and interaction is an inspiration for the next thing. I have a ton of voice memos on my phone of sounds that I hear when I’m out and about or melodies that’ll come to mind. I’m always thinking about music!
Did you know you want to pursue this as a career?
AJ: No! It wasn’t my initial focus. I knew I wanted to do something in music. When I graduated in 2010 (I studied music composition at Vassar College) and I moved to LA my initial focus was performance music! So I was playing in a band and touring and writing original music for the band. It wasn’t until 2014 or 2015, four or five years into living in LA, where [I realized] I wanted to incorporate something else into my musical practice. It could’ve been engineering, I could’ve been creating albums for other artists… but I feel like the nature of being in LA, surrounded by so many directors and creatives that are in the tv and film world [made it] kind of easy to fall into that space. [All of] these projects need music so [I thought], “let me do this” and I [started] to figure it out.
That’s so awesome! What did you do?
AJ: Once I set my sights on it I was like, ok, I should probably seek out the best composers to shadow and work with. So I worked with Hans Zimmer, John Powell, and Michael Levine. So [in] 2014 and 2015 I was being like a music production assistant at all these studios, to kind of really get my feet wet in those spaces and see what it’s like and I loved it! So that was the beginning.
Wow! So how long have you been composing for television and movies?
AJ: It wasn’t until 2018 [that] I had the opportunity for [scoring] my first feature film. Subsequently, that fall [I had] my first television pilot which was Lena Waithe’s [BET show] Twenties. So, yeah, it [my career] was kind of fast in some ways! I did a lot of studying and putting in the work. Once I set my sights on it [composing music for film and tv] I had a razor-sharp focus to see it through.
You’re also the co-founder of The Composers Diversity Collective! Could you tell us a little about that?
AJ: Yeah! So the founder is Michael Gables and there’s a bunch of co-founders, it’s like myself and ten other people! It’s very much a collective. We’re all collaborating to bring this vision to life and it’s really exciting. Our vision and mission is to build our community and bring awareness of our community to Hollywood studios, and help break down that pipeline problem that’s been happening historically when it comes to hiring composers.
What is that?
AJ: Hollywood will often hire the same names and voices and they won’t look outside of their community to find new faces. So when you create a group of diverse voices, whether it’s our composer diversity collective or any other group, that makes it so much easier for studios to tap into that talent pool. . . to help fix this problem. Individually we leverage our own contacts to help the larger group which is really beautiful.
That sounds amazing!
AJ: It’s been an incredible experience. I think it’s just so important. Before [we created] this group there were so many diverse composers of all backgrounds working in LA and we just weren’t aware of each other. We all felt very alone in our respective spaces. But when you come together as a group, as a collective the community is strong. Having awareness of each other is just so powerful! We’re there to help each other out getting gigs, and we’re staffing our own teams. . . It’s a great resource for everyone. It’s like this beautiful ecosystem where we’re all just helping each other and emboldening each other.
So, we know in Hollywood and film production the industry is still very male-dominated. Is that like that in music and composition too?
AJ: Yeah, definitely. Even in the beginning in my music classes at Vassar it was very much white and white male. You definitely see that in Los Angeles as well. Statistically white men make up the largest proportion of the [music composition] pie when it comes to tv and the top theatrical [features]. They still make up about 80% of hires. The next percentage is POC men, and then after that white females, and then POC females. POC females is somewhere between half a percent to zero percent in both the film arena and television arena. The numbers are staggering! The fact that the largest chunk is still 80% [male] means there’s so much more [we have] to do! So we keep pushing and bringing awareness. Knowing the statistics is empowering.
That goes back to the mission of The Composers Diversity Collective, right?
AJ: Yes, with our [collective] and sharing [our stories], along with the Hollywood diversity reports every year . . . we’re able to inform Hollywood and be like, “Hey. You need to do better.” The action is just not happening. So we’re encouraging people [in the film and tv industry] to continue to do better and having candid conversations about it.
[We were] having face-to-face mixers pre-COVID, but now it’s about trying to get creative with how we continue to have these relationships with different studios and to introduce our composers for potential hiring. We have a relationship with almost every studio. We had a mixer with Netflix last year and Universal has been amazing. The composers initiative they’re doing [features] diverse voices, so it’s slowly happening! It’s exciting.
Thank you so much for talking to us! We’re really excited to see what else you get up to!
AJ: Yeah! Thank you so much for taking the time and thinking of me. I really appreciate it!