music makes
life make
sense
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.
artist
I use fluent musicianship skills as a pianist and vocalist to express inner feelings with spontaneity, authenticity and candour. Whether complex or simple, deep or trifling, challenging or transparent, the meanings are always relatable and honest.
As a composer of contemporary classical piano music, I explore the rhythmic and tonal language of jazz and pop as well as classical music and allow my subjective expression to create originality and an identifiable “voice” without following or contriving any particular, narrow genre. I believe my job as an artist is to be a musical storyteller, to communicate with clarity and directness, using a rich, personal musical vocabulary, evoking vivid scenes and atmospheres in a natural, intelligible and coherent way – even in completely unplanned improvisations.
I love how musical language can evoke the intricacies of our interior moods and convey subtle shifts of feeling with sharp precision. Ultimately, I aim to describe how it feels to be alive in the world today, to offer insight, catharsis and solace.
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 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: I don’t use lots of technique, complex theory, repetitive muscle-memory rehearsing, drilling of finger exercises or scales, mindless karaoke or show-and-play instruction… these approaches have no place in my musical fluency training.
A fluent musician has incredibly useful musical skills such as improvisation, playing by ear and true sight-reading or sight-singing (not the usual decoding). Fluency removes the stiffness that conventional music training causes: it generates the freedom to express 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 unconventional 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.