Top 98 Quotes & Sayings by Jon Hopkins
Explore popular quotes and sayings by an English musician Jon Hopkins.
Last updated on September 18, 2024.
Whenever I've improved, gone up a level in sound-making, it's been because I've done an album.
No, I'm a quite big believer in not being in the studio if I don't feel like being in there.
I got this pretend grass stuff called LazyLawn on my roof. Now I can go out on my terrace in bare feet, and it looks exactly like a lawn. This is what science should be for.
I like to have an album arc that comes from an experience rather than a story.
To try and create a transcendent state through music has always been the intention.
A lot of my creative ideas begin in the pub, talking through possibilities with collaborators.
For me, the score is one of the main characters of a film.
There's never been a time when there hasn't been ritualistic dancing, and I think clubbing is our modern incarnation of that.
I was guided into piano lessons and 'guided' is a nice way of saying 'forced.' I don't regret it, but I think music theory as a concept doesn't work.
I don't want to make an album which is full of brutal and jarring techno.
When you sit there doing a film score for three months there's no time to experiment.
Music is an expression, a deep-seated feeling.
Writing music - particularly music without lyrics - calls almost exclusively on the subconscious.
Some machine-y music is great, but you can apply any groove to any song now - there's literally a massive drop-down menu on most programs. And that's what takes the human being out of the process.
It's really important for me to have a record which has a strong narrative feel to it.
I'm not someone who can just be paid to play keyboards on songs. I tried to do it - I needed the money, but it made me really unhappy and ill to be doing it.
I'm an example of someone who got a bit more focused as I got older.
Meditation gives you back one or two sleep cycles every time you do it. Do it every day and it goes quite a long way towards helping insomnia.
If you're a traveling artist, you probably experience insomnia at some point. You need things to be the right temperature, the right light... it's essential.
I have the inability to stop thinking and switch off from work at night, which causes a lot of sleeplessness.
I'm not keen on interfering with nature; I don't want to edit my genome.
Learning how to be calm and centered in any situation is a skill for life, whatever you do.
I just love the hypnosis of a single bass drum.
I'm more akin to things like Sigur Ros, Mogwai, possibly. But when I'm making solo electronic music, techno stuff is just the most exciting form of rhythm.
I'm a bit snobbish about breakfast: eggs benedict, or eggs royale, or something like that. Or just some really amazing, proper brown toast with smoked salmon, lemon, and black pepper. That's a great start to the day.
I'm very impulsive and I always had a belief in instinct leading the way.
I love starting a track in one place and not knowing where it's going to end up.
I went to a hypnotherapist and learned how to hypnotize myself and explored orthogenic training, how to relax each part of your body.
I think I took eight or nine months to make 'Immunity.' I just focused on mainly that, and it felt amazing.
I tend to listen to podcasts while running. I don't like to listen to music because my brain would try to get me to run in time with it.
I've tried to do every album in a different style, which is why I tend to leave a fair bit of time between each one.
The first thing I remember hearing was just the dance music that was in the charts when I was growing up. I don't remember many of the names of specific tracks - they were just kind of early acid house things.
When I did 'Immunity,' even though I did a film score at the beginning and also at the end, I was left uninterrupted during the middle bit. I got a good year of just writing and focusing. That, to me, is when I make the best stuff.
What do I call my music? Beats with melodies.
I was always fascinated particularly with synths: how they looked and stuff that when you're a kid you're like this is the most incredible thing in the world just to play.
For me, the most important thing is to keep everything moving very fast, so when I have an idea, I can realize it and make it audible as soon as possible.
Nothing competes with the buzz of making your own record.
I would never advocate anyone doing anything without educating themselves and finding out exactly what they're in for.
Sometimes you can just record anything and slow it down hugely and you'll find all these hidden notes and frequencies that match up really nicely.
As a teenager, you don't really have restraint.
Maybe I'm just stubborn about learning new things - I can't stand learning new programs - but any sound I can imagine, I can make with SoundForge. And I'm using the old version, like 4.5 from 1999. I use it for every sound.
Meditation is a regular part of my day, every day.
Sometimes I hear records that are being recorded at the absolute highest quality, and I just don't like the sound of it.
Well, I don't really use MIDI that much. But I do record audio around me a lot, and just layer it up and see what effect it has, without any aforethought.
I remember having a 7-inch Depeche Mode single when I was ten and really loving that.
That's the thing with electronic music, you set up systems to bring in an accident, to bring in quirks you didn't choose, but you still will have had to set up systems.
When you've got hardly any equipment, very little money and no access to any information, your sound is very much dictated by you, your setup and what you're listening to. Nothing more.
Transcendental meditation in particular is very useful in terms of unlocking those deeper parts of the subconscious where ideas are floating.
I don't really want to go into the world of production and I don't really want to produce other people particularly.
I'm never really conscious of what I'm being influenced by when I'm writing.
You can only make the best thing you can make, and if it offends purists, or angers certain critics, you can only have done your best.
I do believe there's a human right to experiment with your consciousness, as long as you're harming no one else.
I'm a massive catastrophist by nature.
I've learnt over the years to always be thinking of titles and ideas that I try to put across with just a couple of words. It's the difficult part when you're writing things that are basically abstract.
Your music essentially reflects everything you do, everything you've been through, in the deepest part of you.
I prefer a long day of starting in the morning over working late into the night.
I always liked the idea of shaving the back of my head and getting a tattoo of my own face there so that, whichever way I was looking, I could freak people out.
It's great to do something that makes your brain just switch to a different mode, and music can do that really powerfully.
I don't believe in getting a lot of new gear all the time, so I get very deeply into one instrument and use it for many years.
The track 'Open Eye Signal,' when you hear that choir sound come in, that's actually me singing but sped up and with huge reverb and overlayered harmonies.
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