I’m Phil Best, award-winning RNCM graduate performing & recording artist – pianist, composer, producer & vocalist – and innovative piano teacher & singing teacher
Hear my music – pieces, songs and improvisations – on YouTube, SoundCloud, Spotify and other streaming sites.
Study piano, singing or composition with me online or in my studio at home in London SW6, Fulham / Hammersmith.
Award-winning RNCM graduate performing & recording artist – pianist, composer, producer & vocalist – and innovative piano teacher & singing teacher.
Hear my music on YouTube, SoundCloud, Spotify and other streaming sites.
Study piano, singing or composition with me online or in my studio at home in London SW6, Fulham / Hammersmith.
ARTIST
I make use of my fluent musicianship skills as a pianist and vocalist to express inner feelings with authenticity and candour. Whether complex or simple, I like to create music with depth and integrity but always in a way that is relatable and unpretentious. I believe my job as an artist is to be a musical storyteller, to communicate with clarity and directness, making adept use of rich musical language to evoke vivid scenes and atmospheres in a way that is natural, intelligible and coherent, even in completely unplanned improvisations. I love to evoke complex moods and subtle shifts of feeling with sharp precision, ultimately to describe how it feels to be alive in the world today, to offer insight, catharsis and solace.
My music can be virtuoso or understated, intimate or declamatory, dark or sweet. My approach as a composer of contemporary classical piano music is to let the honesty of my expression naturally create artistic originality and an identifiable “voice”. So I don’t follow or contrive a specific, narrow genre, but happily explore and the rhythmic and tonal language of jazz and pop as well as classical to tell my musical truth.
TEACHER
I teach fluency in the language of music for piano or keyboard players and singers. My unique approach builds on natural, intuitive musicianship using a simple model of musical language to generate powerful skills. I coach students to focus effortlessly on on internalised musical “vocabulary” and “syntax” whilst actively letting go of expressive blockages and self-consciousness.
It’s a highly practical system that is very different from current conventional music learning: complex theory, technique training, repetitive muscle-memory drilling, mindless show-and-play… these approaches have no place in my musical fluency training. A fluent musician has incredibly useful musical skills like improvisation, playing by ear and true sight-reading (not the usual decoding). Fluency removes the stiffness that appears so often in conventional music training, as it generates the freedom to express oneself musically with natural ease and flow.
Fluency in the language of music as a means of authentic self-expression is the heart of my work both as an artist and a teacher
BACKGROUND
I studied piano with 2 wonderful teachers, Ella Pounder from the age of 5 until I was 9 and Denis Matthews from the age of 14 until I was 18. They helped me explore music in playful and creative ways. In the time between studying with them, I had a teacher who taught in more conventional ways, with lots of theory, strict technique, playing with the metronome etc. This didn’t suit me at all, especially as he was also quite a bully. I instantly felt my natural musicality getting blocked. But this negative experience caused me to to rebel, albeit secretly. Through deep reflection and exploration of the inner workings of music, I held onto my natural skills, and developed them rapidly into very powerful fluency in the language of music. Meanwhile, I pretended to follow my teacher’s highly dogmatic instruction and passed all the ABRSM examinations with distinctions by the time I was 11 and won many junior competitions. I also played concertos and recitals from the age of 12 onwards. Studying with Denis Matthews from the age of 14 was a wonderful experience. His encouragement and insight were invaluable.
Aged 18, I went to the RNCM to study piano and also had informal singing lessons. Again, I had a difficult relationship with my piano teacher, Ryszard Bakst: he found my natural, unpretentious manners not to his taste but he encouraged me to participate and compete and I won awards for my piano playing, performed regularly as a concerto soloist and in recitals and graduated with first class honours.
I left the RNCM quite burnt out but gradually settled into my own ways of working as a professional musician and teacher. I now offer students fluent musicianship training in piano and singing, which generates a range of incredibly useful skills in any chosen genre of music. Ultimately, musical fluency allows us to express our deep inner feelings directly and spontaneously, something which is beyond the scope of words, and in my view, is the true purpose of music. I have continued working as a pianist, playing classical repertoire, as well as my own pieces and improvisations in my own unconventional, natural way. Jazz and pop styles (piano and singing) also interest me very much as an artist and I am currently working on some new artistic projects.
“Music is the language of the spirit. It opens the secret of life, bringing peace, abolishing strife.”
― Kahlil Gibran
SOUL NOT EGO
Fluent music communicates directly soul to soul, bringing joy, solace and catharsis, even healing. This is the goal of my musical work. I dislike the competitive climate that we find so often in today’s music industry: rooted in egotism, cold commercialism and status-seeking, it weakens the true purpose of music.
Having experienced early success as a young classical musician, I was injured psychologically by the pressure of working within a system that feeds an insatiable hunger for prestige and rank within the hierarchical competitive realm. The continual process of healing – transcending these painful experiences – is a great opportunity for growth and insight, both as an artist and teacher. My role is to serve the healing properties of music, using its extraordinary power as the language of inner feeling, to tell musical stories that help us make sense of living in this complex and often troubling world.
Sanctuary – a safe space that brings respite from the noise & hype
THE ESSENCE OF WHAT I OFFER
The way I create and teach music might appear to swim against the tide of today’s culture. I want to share music and ideas about how it works in order to bring genuine, lasting benefit to people. As a quiet, curious type, I like to spend time going deeply into things that interest me, specifically the way music works within the brain, the body and the soul to benefit us. I simply don’t believe in quick fixes, and attempting to create viral content is not for me. I just enjoy connecting with like-minded individuals who are looking for some of the following things that I aim to provide:
- Sanctuary – a safe space – respite from all the hype and noise that surrounds us
- Solace and catharsis – healing
- Play, nurture, discovery, growth and transformation – a sense of childlike wonder
- Intelligent, no-nonsense, deep reflection and open-hearted, honest discussion, sifting through the noise to find the wisdom of deep simplicity
- Real skill and virtuosity, without empty showing off
- Storytelling – honest, pure entertainment without gimmicks, spin, manipulation or affectation
- The experience of true pleasure
Music has the power to make us feel really good. When the groove is strong, and we can follow the thread clearly, it can transport us into an altered state of consciousness. Our response to music clearly stimulates endorphins and neurotransmitters like serotonin, oxytocin etc. that are associated with feeling good. In a world that can so often feel alienating and ruthless, I believe that it has the power to connect us to the source, to help us feel that we truly belong.
