Sheet Music available at http://briancrain.com

The Edge Of A Petal - Please listen on Spotify, It's important to me : )

Una Storia D'amore

My version of Hallelujah by the great Leonard Cohen.

Hallelujah by Brian Crain - All my music is on Spotify

Ed Haydon's beautiful piano piece "Hope" was one of my absolute favourite pieces from the Piano Cloud group in 2013. So when we launched a new challenge to record a cover version of another member's music, it was an obvious and immediate choice. 

Rather than simply reproduce the piece in the same way that Ed himself recorded it, I have used his notation as a start point and made some subtle changes. I have added extensions to the chords and re-voiced them, embellished the melody in places and added additional runs and doodles. There's a new ending too. These changes give the piece an "Andrew Eales flavour", while staying true, I hope, to Ed's original vision for the piece.

One of the reasons Ed Haydon's "Hope" was such a great track was its simplicity though, and I realise that by adding complexity I have created a version which is distinct. You may in any case prefer the original, which I encourage you to listen to here:

https://soundcloud.com/edhaydon/ed-haydon-hope-2013-version 

Artwork by Ed Haydon used with permission. 

Ed Haydon: "Hope" (new recording by Andrew Eales)

I feel very thankful and fortunate to have had a truly amazing summer in 2014.  I visited no fewer than seven counties between July and August.  I witnessed so many amazing things in Romania, Russia, Finland, Sweden, Estonia, Denmark, and Iceland. I spent quality time, working, playing, and planning for the future with close friends and colleagues. I met and befriended many new and truly wonderful people whom I now consider close friends.

I was asked many times both by friends and family in the US, as well as the local people in the various cities I was in, what I thought about all the various political instability in the world today.  The questions invariably centered around something to the effect of "Aren't you worried/concerned/afraid to be traveling at the moment?"

My standard answer, which I became quite practiced in reciting, was:  I think that if some alien species which did not speak any human language came to Earth and visited New York, Washington DC, Bucharest, Moscow, St. Petersburg, Helsinki, Stockholm, Tallinn, Copenhagen, and Reykjavik it would have a very hard time telling us all apart.  Despite our small cultural differences, people everywhere generally want the same things.  We all look quite similar when we smile and laugh as well as when we cry.

It is said,  everybody loves something, is afraid of something, has lost something, and is looking to find something.  Which will you focus on?  Will you give love unconditionally, or will you help create fear in effort to mask your own?  Will you help yourself and others get lost, or will you try your best to find something of true value and meaning?  Will you focus on artificial divisions and all the reasons why you think you can not do something, or will you open the borders of your heart to new experiences and opportunities for growth? The choice is yours.  It is all of ours.



A deep and humble thanks to everyone in Romania, Russia, Finland, Sweden, Estonia, Denmark, and Iceland for sharing part of your lives and wonderful culture with me.  The memories will last a lifetime and have already become a formative experience to my creative process.  Thank you!

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"Autumn Rains" is the second installment in a trio of neoclassical solo piano albums composed, performed, and produced by Andrew Souter. These projects have been two decades in the making and represent a return to traditional music composition, engaging song-writing, and the pure passion of emotional story-telling. This trio represents Andrew's most personal and intimate music. It is quite literally a love project. We hope it may help you on your journey, as it has us...

"Autumn Rains" is music inspired by the spirit of Agape. It is an album dedicated to the concept of spiritual love and universal compassion clothed in the metaphor of transcendental natural beauty. It is an album that simultaneously expresses deep love for both the creator as well as the creation. It is said God gave us music so that we could pray without words. It could be added that nature was provided as an example of exactly how to do this effectively. In this spirit, Autumn Rains is a prayer of gratitude for the opportunity to learn from the natural beauty of this world, and an expression of a sense of respect for the inescapable universal equality that nature imposes. It humbly attempts to capture deep feelings of awe, granduer, idealism, and a belief in the innate goodness of the world even when we all face exceptionally hard lessons.


Andrew Souter -- Without Borders

That feeling of falling into nothing ,then you realize you’re in control! The fear falls away but the butterflies remain , leaving u to explore what your mind has created!

Azure Dream

the quiet of now

Happy new year my friends,,, 2016 is here, 2015 was the year that mostly nothing happened,,,

2016 I don´t have high hopes for,, but I hope it will bring you all nice things.

Free download if you want this piece.

Una Melodia Dal Passato

Through sound, emotion seeks new dimensions, not as an escape from reality but rather in a search for the image of a new reality. Music that creates emotion, is like a wind that purifies, rendering visible all the obstacles and divisions. It is rather like a piercing arrow that alerts the parts of our mind we do not normally go to, in our daily lives. It opens up unknown and obscure landscapes, like a ray of light that filtering into a dark room, banishes the darkness and leaves nothing to hinder vision. 
”Canone degli Spazi” is about the sound that journeys in all directions, the sound that travels through endless space - through the outer world and the inner space - through the unconscious and the senses. 
When I play with precision and with specific intent, the emotion that rises inside of me is the mirror of the one that arises in the person who is listening - it provokes a sense of union and communion with those sharing the same moment. Music becomes a vehicle of an objective feeling, which is almost the same for most people. Similarly, if I am not One with the sound and my intention is not clear, the same notes played carelessly are empty - they lose their power and their intensity. The level of clarity of my expression depends on what I can make arise inside of me. When that happens, the inner nature of the melodies that are being played spreads out into space, into the air, into the earth and out to the whole atmosphere. A real spell takes place between the performer and his public, creating a magical aura of deep harmony and sharing. This is the wonder of a sound that has come from a long time ago, through myths and mythology, and returns us to the essence of Music, that most supreme of Arts. 
I composed “Canone degli Spazi” around essential elements - the harmony of the triads, the melodic repetition and the cycles that follow the orbits of the planets and the structure of harmonics - the very same fundamental rules that Pythagoras followed to make the laws of the Universe coincide. Sound can help us to realize that our inner space is as vast as our outer space and that in reality there is no difference between them. Sound travels through walls - the walls of the mind too – transcending both time and space. 

Canone degli spazi - Michael

Free sheet music at http://briancrain.com

Dream of Flying - New free sheet music on my website each month

This track is from the album Piano and Cello Duet and is available for purchase on CD Baby here: http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/briancrain11

Song for Sienna - All of my music is on Spotify

Brian was born in Hollywood, California. He has been composing music as long as he can remember. Family members tell him that when he was very young he began whistling nearly all the time. When someone would ask what he was whistling, Brian would usually answer something like, "I don't know. I just made it up."

He was only six years old when his parents bought a baby grand piano, thinking that Brian's musical talents could use a more polished medium. But Brian continued to whistle his songs. He was not drawn to the keyboard. When he was ten years old, Brian began taking piano lessons, but he soon became bored with the lessons. Besides, the piano took time away from his new passion, baseball. So he gave up the piano. His need to compose, however, would not be stopped. His friends would often hear him whistling his newest compositions during practice or games on the baseball diamond. At this young age, Brian was dreaming of becoming a professional baseball player while whistling his own songs.

Brian would occasionally sit down at that nearly forgotten piano. He would improvise at the keyboard, just as he had always improvised with his whistling, playing with the notes until something started sounding just right. He was, without realizing it, teaching himself to play the piano.

Also without intending to do it, Brian was training himself to compose at the piano. By his early twenties, he was composing songs for award-winning children's films. He was also still nurturing his dream of playing professional baseball, but after unsuccessful tryouts with professional teams, he sadly let that dream slip away.

It was during this time that his family suggested he record his personal piano works and release them on CD. He had never seriously considered recording for CD release, but when he recorded the first album, it was so well received that he started spending all his time composing and recording his own works. Now he jokes that the best thing that ever happened to him was not becoming a professional baseball player.

Brian's albums “Piano Opus” and ”Piano and Light” experiment with odd timings and minimalist concepts. Writing beautiful melodies on top of 7/8 timing is a challenge suited for Brian’s love of mathematics and quest for new ideas in music. He has also achieved great success with his two duet albums "Piano and Cello Duet" and "Piano and Violin Duet", inspiring tens of thousands of piano, violin and cello players to perform Brian's compositions all over the world.

Many of Brian's compositions are used in movies and television commercials around the world and in 2013 Brian was honored as the Honorary Cultural Ambassador for Yeongwol, S. Korea, one of the sites of the 2018 Winter Olympics.