What my music is about & why I do it
Music has always been about more than entertainment for me. It is a language of feeling, a way of exploring experiences that are difficult or perhaps even impossible to put into words.
Through music, I try to make sense of life: what we celebrate or struggle with, the motivations and feelings that connect us all. Through piano pieces, improvisations and songs, I explore how musical structures and gestures create deep meaning. Whatever form music takes, it begins from the same place: a desire to explore and communicate something I'm genuinely curious about, something I want to resolve or illuminate.
I work within a number of distinct projects. You may find yourself drawn to one more than another. Or you may enjoy travelling between all of them. Each represents a different expression of the same artistic vision.
Phil Best — Classical-based piano compositions & improvisations
My classical-based music is designed to take you on a deep journey within. With classical repertoire as well as my own pieces and improvisations, I explore inner spaces. I’m drawn to this kind of music as a source of pure trance-like focus, intensity, and transformation. In my show 12 Questions, I ask the audience to ponder some deep ideas, and with their direction, I create music to transport us all into a magical realm.
Explore: Phil Best
Lewis Harrison — Jazz fusion piano & vocals
Lewis Harrison is my most personal voice — stripped‑back piano, simple hip hop beats, and stories shaped in real time. In my live show, We Are The Music, the room becomes part of the improvisation: I ask questions, we reflect together, and I create sounds that feel like they’re being discovered rather than performed. It's like musical standup as much as a traditional concert — perhaps even a kind of therapy.
Explore: Lewis Harrison
Musometry — Piano‑based house & electronica
Musometry is piano solo with house and downtempo beats — jazz‑inflected harmonies with delicious melodies and grooves. Often improvised spontaneously, this is mellow, joyous music. My live shows are ideal for spaces that invite movement and interaction: sophisticated parties with dancing, gallery openings, late‑night rooms, any gathering where music creates the atmosphere of a sophisticated lounge.
Explore: Musometry
Tone&Groove — Meditative piano
Having always been interested in music as a meditative practice, Tone&Groove came into being as a result of teaching students to explore very simple melodies a over drone bass. These drones then shift within the tonal landscape to change the feeling or mode of consciousness. The pieces are conceived as improvisations but are then structured carefully to unfold over longer periods of time, from 20 minutes to an hour.
Explore: Tone&Groove
Genre-bending
These separate projects are less about different genres than they are about different perspectives. The difference in their sound is really more on the surface, as they all emerge from the same creative process. It's not that I make a premeditated decision to write a classical piece, a jazz song, an electronic groove with a jazzy piano solo, or a meditative soundscape. Instead, as I reflect on something, I simply follow where the music naturally wants to take me.
The spacious rubato and atmospheric textures of Phil Best come from a desire to experience something fantastical or magical. The syncopated rhythms and conversational quality of Lewis Harrison come from personal stories and human connection. Musometry's groovy energy comes from a love of flow, movement, and collective energy. The hypnotic simplicity of Tone&Groove comes from the desire for stillness, attention, and equanimity. In that sense, these projects are not really separate artistic personas at all. They are just different facets of the same voice.
Imitating other styles can be fun and I do it sometimes. But it feels more like being an impersonator. In a way, I prefer the idea of being like a stand-up comedian—musing about life in the language of music, as myself. If the musical world were less organised around genre, I might well release everything under a single name. It's just that when I explore certain feelings, particular musical qualities naturally emerge. These projects are not "produced" to fit an existing genre so much as to scratch a genuine itch that I happen to be having at that moment.