Life asks questions...
music has all the answers
I'm Phil Best - award-winning RNCM graduate performing & recording artist - pianist, composer, producer & vocalist - and innovative piano teacher & singing teacher, offering piano, singing or composition lessons online or at home in my small but well-equipped studio in London SW6, Fulham / Hammersmith.
As a communicator and educator my passion is for music as a language that we can "speak" fluently to tell our inner stories. You can hear my music - pieces, songs and improvisations - on YouTube, SoundCloud, Spotify and other streaming sites.
This site is my Vlog/Blog and a portal to my projects.
I create across different genres — classical, jazz, using improvisation in both, and piano‑based electronic music. Each project explores a different facet of the same lifelong impulse: to explore the inner realm of feeling using music to bring clarity, solace, catharsis, freedom and pure joy.
I have 3 Projects:
- Phil Best — classical-based
- Lewis Harrison — jazz fusion solo piano
- Musometry — EDM/house with jazzy solo piano
I teach music as a language — following simple principles to express yourself in any style. Using a clear model of rhythm and tonality, I help students develop confidence, fluency, and a deeper connection to music, whether just beginning, returning, or working at a professional level.
I offer 3 distinct directions:
- MusicallyFluent — for serious musicians of all types
- PlayPianoFluently or SingFluently — for pleasure
- ToneandGroove — for meditation & transformation
Symmetry, structure and natural 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.
For me, the language of music has deep simplicity at its foundations. It follows a very simple model of rhythmic and tonal structure that is perfectly natural. Although we all have an intuitive sense of this structure, from a young age, I have trained myself to have clear, conscious awareness of it
This gives me the kinds of musical skills like improvising and playing by ear. My early fascination with the structure and symmetry of music led me to notice how rhythmic groove follows and unfolding matrix and how keyboard is laid out. This, combined with a passionate love of music formed my abilities. This experience of musical structure gives me a very deep grasp of how musical language works — I think in music. The expressive freedom this provides means that playing music directly from the body and soul is my absolute joy.
soul, not ego
Fluent music communicates directly soul to soul, bringing joy, solace and catharsis, even healing. So with flunecy as my goal, both as an artist and as a teacher, I regard the competitive climate of today’s music and music education industries as problematic. Being rooted in egotism, cold commercialism and status-seeking weakens the true purpose of music.
Having experienced early success as a young classical musician, I was hurt psychologically by the pressure of a system that feeds an insatiable hunger for prestige and rank within a 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 believe my job is to serve the healing properties of music, using its extraordinary power as the language of inner feeling, telling musical stories that help us make sense of living in this complex and often troubling world.