Emily Hopkins - Interview
Artist Spotlight: Harp Lady is here!
This is such a special day for me! In our new Artist Spotlight, I’m so excited to feature one of my favorite creators of the past few years and probably the coolest person online, Emily Hopkins - aka Emily Harpist! Emily Hopkins is a professional electroacoustic harpist and composer from Long Island, NY. Emily, along with her partner Russ, has earned a reputation as an avant-garde artist who mixes classical harp techniques with emerging music technology including pedal effects, modular synth, and other forms of sound manipulation.
Emily and Russ skyrocketed their YouTube channel by demoing effects pedals with a harp but there is so much more to it. They found a way to make pedal reviews so much fun and entertaining but the most important thing is that they put out their genuine true selves that made people invested in them and love them! Emily had to both enjoy their success and the love they got but also all the mean comments and misogyny there is online - I can’t believe that we still have to talk about this but the sad reality is that we have a long way to cover to finally support and celebrate all the incredible women in the music and music gear industry as we should.
So, I’m really glad I had the chance to chat and do this interview with Emily where we talk about her journey, her struggles throughout the years, and, of course, GEAR!
Question: So, Emily, want to share with us how you first got into music and what made you choose the harp as your primary instrument?
Emily: Of course! Back in 2001, I went to a restaurant with my family, and there was a harpist performing during the dinner service. He was playing such beautiful music in a style I had never seen before, and I was absolutely mesmerized. The man playing the harp was now-renowned harpist Edmar Castaneda during his college years, and he was the direct inspiration for me taking up harp lessons. I was already taking piano lessons at the time, so when I asked my parents for harp lessons, it wasn’t completely out of the question to pick up a new instrument. Once I began taking lessons, I rented a lever harp until I was able to purchase one of my own.
Q: You started your YouTube journey in July of 2019 and since then you’ve gotten more than 400K subscribers. How did you make the decision to start a YouTube channel in the first place?
Em: My partner Russ and I decided to start a YouTube channel together because of our shared love for effect pedals! The inspiration came when I was trying to decide whether the Chase Bliss MOOD pedal was worth it for the harp or not. There were no resources or pedal demos for harpists who wanted to use effect pedals, so originally my motivation for the channel was to help other harpists. Over time, it has evolved into the chaos that it is today – mostly about music technology, its creative applications, and the amazing people and artists who make and use emerging music technology.
Q: You are a classically trained harpist, but you went way beyond the “typical” harp playing and harp sound. What was the thing that pushed you in that direction?
Em: I think the rigidity of the classical music world and the fact that I wasn’t seeing any other harpists who resonated with me helped push me into the direction I’m following now. Growing up, I didn’t see other harpists who had my sense of humor, and I didn’t see any harpists who didn’t take themselves too seriously. In my opinion, I felt that there was always an air of “I’m-better-than-you”, with this strange sense of competition always lurking in the background with most harpists I met. I felt pressured to act in certain ways and play exclusively classical music, and I even felt compelled to refrain from cursing. I feel like a part of me was always waiting for another harpist to look at me and candidly say, “Isn’t this shit so wild?” I’d love to be that person for someone else.
Q: Most people might just know you from YouTube and social media. But you also do a lot of gigs, scoring films and shows, you write your own original music and used to do a lot of weddings too! How do you balance all these things alongside being present and creating content for YouTube and social media?
Em: It’s honestly something I struggled with for a while. I had to stop taking on my freelance wedding gigs in Long Island because most of the time, couples were asking to book their celebration dates a year or two years in advance, and it’s difficult for me to hold a date that far away, because I never know what my media/work schedule will look like. December 2023 was my final wedding gig ever, and although I was sad to stop performing, I was so excited to focus my efforts on composing and media. In addition to all the things that my partner Russ and I do on the channel, we both also worked full-time 9-5 jobs in fields unrelated to music – something that was not sustainable long-term. We both have made adjustments in our lives in order to do this full-time because some people mistakenly think that there is an “EmilyHarpist Production Team,” when in reality it’s just me and my partner working together in our studio.
Q: Let’s talk about the unsung hero of your YouTube channel – your partner Russ! Even though you’re always in front of the camera, I know that this is a very collaborative project. So, besides all the knob twisting that Russ excels at, how do you two balance all the work that needs to be done for your videos and content?
Em: Haha, Russ really is the unsung hero of the channel! I call him “the man behind the camera.” He’s an extremely talented audio engineer and co-composer who not only handles the harp audio, but also handles the camera work, mic placements, and lighting as well. I’m proud to say that I taught Russ how to edit on Final Cut back in the day, but now he edits faster than I do, so we split video editing work between the both of us. We both are proficient in Photoshop so we split working on thumbnails as well, but balancing can sometimes be difficult when one of us isn’t feeling up to it on a bad day. Russ likes to say that having a partner isn’t twice as productive, but ‘infinitely’ more productive because you can keep each other motivated, have someone to bounce ideas off of, and help improve each other’s work. If we’re stumped for video ideas, we’ll go for a walk and chat about silly things, or sit at a coffee shop somewhere with a notepad. Our rule is that if something makes us laugh, we HAVE to pursue it in some way, which is a great way to find out what we’re genuinely interested in creating!
Q: You must be getting hundreds of emails to review pedals. How do you choose what to feature on your channel or not?
Em: Russ and I usually have a pretty good sense of which gear would be a genuinely good fit for us – although we’ve learned a lot about what fits us best as content creators through past mistakes and lapses of judgment. The most important criteria right now is how compelling the gear is in creative applications, and how it will engage and interest our audience. We rarely accept things like dirt pedals, but we will make exceptions if the pedals do something particularly special.
Q: In the past year, you’ve been diving even more into synthesizers, drum machines, and modular gear. Should we expect even more non-harp gear-related videos in the future?
Em: Absolutely! Now that the channel has evolved, the harp will become less of a focal point and more of a supplemental element on both of our YouTube channels. We are more interested in discussing music technology’s use across many instruments and mediums; not limited to the harp.
Q: Your popularity and channel have blown up relatively fast. On the outside, someone might think it’s because of a few viral videos. However, I believe it’s more about your consistency, your personalities and chemistry between you two, and the very entertaining formula of your videos and reviews. What do you think is the “secret” behind having a successful YouTube channel?
Em: I think you said it perfectly – consistency is the biggest part of it, with some other important elements being trial and error. Russ and I have been working on the channel for the past 5 years, and we have had a handful of spikes in growth due to viral videos, but the majority of our growth has been gradual. Having a large backlog of videos throughout growth has been essential because when someone discovers our channel for the first time, we have a large library of content to check out or content that the algorithm can feed them. We believe the most important part of making content is to just get started and make it, and not wait for the perfect time to finish or publish it or wait until it’s “perfect”.
Q: I love the fact that you’re having fun with all the weird and sometimes negative comments. This video was one of my favorites! But I’ve heard you say that it’s sometimes hard to deal with the negativity and toxicity in the comments section. Is this getting better over time? And how do you deal with it?
Em: It’s definitely gotten better over time. Before I had a YouTube channel, nobody ever really bothered me when I was playing the harp, and I certainly never had anybody say anything negatively to me regarding the harp. When our first distortion pedal video went viral in 2021, I spent an entire week in bed, and I had to turn notifications off on my phone because it was blowing up with new comments every second. I almost deleted the entire channel, because people were coming from all corners of the internet to tell me how terrible of a harpist I was, to insult my appearance, or to straight up threaten me. A lot of the comments were super positive and sweet, but some were just straight-up cruel, and it was my first, extremely harsh wake-up call to the fact that misogyny is still rampant, even if it doesn’t affect you. And I internalized every single mean comment back then. I’ve thankfully built up a thick skin over the years, and the way I deal with it now is by laughing at how ridiculous most of the comments are because I’ve seen so much of that shit before. I won’t sit here and tell you it doesn’t hurt my feelings, because a lot of the time people say, “Oh, just don’t let it affect you!” or “If you let them hurt your feelings, they win!” – honestly I think it’s okay to acknowledge that mean comments are mean, and they do hurt people’s feelings. The best thing you can do is have an amazing support system where you can share the ridiculous things people say and have a nice laugh over it with your friends or people you trust. There is never an excuse to say mean things to someone, but not everyone is going to like you, especially on the internet. The best thing you can do is still unapologetically be yourself, and you will find the right people who resonate with you and who will laugh at the stupidity along with you.
Q: We all know your love for video games! If you could re-score any video game, what would it be?
Em: If I had the honor of re-scoring / adding DLC music to any video game, it would be one of my personal favorites like Crypt of the Necrodancer, Stardew Valley, or Baldur’s Gate 3. At first, I was going to say Banjo-Kazooie, but I could never even come close to what Grant Kirkhope did for that game… I unironically listen to “Witchyworld” when I’m working, and I don’t care that Russ calls it “circus music.”
Q: As we mentioned above, you write original music but also score films and video games. In your original music, you have complete freedom whereas in scoring you have to serve the scene and the story. How do you approach each task? What are the similarities and differences between them?
Em: I would say that there are actually more similarities than differences. Whether Russ and I are composing original music or scoring a film or a video game, it all starts with a simple idea of mood. My improvisational compositions can be heavily dependent on the mood I’m in while writing them, so I have to get in the right headspace before I begin! I always begin by sitting at the harp and sketching out themes and motifs, or creating some synthesizer textures with Russ. I would say the main difference is that in our original compositions, I rarely use the glissando technique (the most widely known “harp sound”), but I will use it in situations that call for it when I’m scoring out a pre-existing scene.
Q: I know that you don’t want to label your music and use specific genres – it’s just cool harp stuff after all! But what are the genres or artists that have influenced you the most?
Em: I’m personally a huge fan of Jay Tholen, Marina Herlop, Windows96, and Jack Stauber. I feel like these artists in particular are all featuring electronic elements while making unconventional, captivating music. It’s sometimes embarrassing for me to show my playlists to other people because of how strange the song titles are. When I first met Russ, I showed him one of my favorite songs, “Life Without Horses” by The Emotron, and he originally had no idea why I liked it. It’s hard for me to name a specific genre, because ‘experimental’ doesn’t quite seem to fit – a more appropriate genre would be “not taking themselves too seriously while at the same time making incredibly fun and unique music” if that was actually a genre that existed.
Q: Where do you see yourself in the next few years regarding making music and art? What are your goals?
Em: I see myself taking on more scoring and composition projects, more albums, and more fun YouTube videos! My goal has actually already been achieved, which has always been to get the harp more involved in video game soundtracks in new and interesting ways. Russ and I recently received an artist residency at the Pollock-Krasner house in East Hampton, NY, which is a huge honor for us. We will be working there on occasion throughout the next year, and I’m so excited to see how our work will evolve!
Q: So, let’s talk gear! Since you have hundreds of pedals, how do you choose which one to use every time you want to write a new song? It must be overwhelming, right?
Em: It can be VERY overwhelming! Usually, we have a good idea of where to start. For example - we might start by saying “Let’s look for a big reverb or something gritty” and we grab a few things and audition them in the context to see what works best. There are a few pedals that are consistently the first ones we pull out when making stuff, like the Chase Bliss Thermae, MOOD MKII, EarthQuaker Devices Avalanche Run, Old Blood Noise Dark Star, Gamechanger Audio Plus Pedal (with a big reverb in the fx loop), and usually some kind of bitcrusher like the AC Noises AMA or Unusual EAS.
Q: Do you remember the first pedal you used with your harp?
Em: The first pedal I ever bought and used on my harp was an EHX Cathedral Reverb, and I wasn’t crazy about how it sounded. When Russ and I first met, he brought over a handful of EQD pedals, so I usually say that EarthQuaker Devices pedals were the first ones I really tried (and loved!), especially Avalanche Run. The first one I bought myself was the Chase Bliss MOOD, which led to us starting our YouTube channel!
Q: What is your favorite instrument right now other than the harp?
Em: I have so much respect for modular synthesists. I’m doing my best to wrap my head around all the necessary information you need to be a good modular synthesist, but I’ll be honest: it can be a real struggle sometimes!
Q: Let’s create your desert island pedalboard! You can only have one pedal from the following categories. A dirt/ distortion pedal, a modulation pedal, a delay, and a reverb. What pedals would you Choose?
For reverb, I’m going with my ol’ reliable Chase Bliss MOOD MKII (runner-up: GFI Skylar). For delay, the reverse delay on EQD Avalanche Run (runner up: Chase Bliss Thermae), and for modulation, Unusual EAS by Blackskycraft. For dirt, I’m bringing my Empress Heavy Menace (runner-up: Collision Devices TARS).
Q: Which do you think is the most underrated pedal that deserves more praise?
Em: Unusual EAS by Blackskycraft. It’s an incredible reverb, bitcrusher, and modulation pedal. It’s especially adept at creating unsettling/scary soundscapes.
Unusual EAS by Blackskycraft
Q: From all the crazy and weird pedals you’ve featured in your channel, which is your favorite one?
Em: It’s so hard to choose one but I really love the Chase Bliss Habit pedal. It can very much be a wild card, but I’m consistently able to create some really amazing pieces with it, and I love how it responds to the harp!
Q: If you could design your dream pedal yourself, what would it be?
Em: I’m keeping that one a secret for now! ;)
Q: Lastly, what advice would you give to someone who wants to get into making music?
Em: Just get started, and be willing to set your ego aside and learn from your mistakes! Don’t wait until you have “that thing that is keeping you from getting started”, because 9 times out of 10, you don’t actually need it right away. You have to be okay with being ‘bad’ at something and willing to be vulnerable to others. Nothing is going to be ‘perfect’ right away; it takes time and consistency to make the best thing you possibly can!
Conclusion
I want to say a huge thank you to Emily & Russ for this interview. Emily is a true inspiration for doing things her own way, getting herself out there, and showing us that if you do love what you do and you have fun while doing it always works out. Oh, and I’m sure you got her hint too so I’m patiently waiting for a pedal designed by her in the near future!!
Follow Emily Hopkins!
Harp Lady YouTube Channel (Emily’s second channel)
Check out our Preset & Sample Packs
