Like lying in the shade of a big tree on a summer day and staring at the sky. Peaceful, melodic, instrumental Celtic-folk music with hammered dulcimer, guitar, piano, recorders, violin, and percussion.

14 MP3 Songs
WORLD: Celtic, FOLK: Celtic Folk



Details:
Brian Thomas is a Celtic-folk songwriter from Surrey, British Columbia. Across cultures and generations, music has been a vehicle for storytelling, and Brianâs songs have sought to re-capture that tradition. His peaceful, melodic music frames touchingly human stories and lyrics packed with imagery. Brian blends the unique sound of the hammered dulcimer with finger-style guitar, piano, bodhran, recorders, violins, and other percussion to create a refreshingly original musical sound.

Brian had no formal music training as a child, and only began making music when he first picked up a guitar at the age of 17. In the years since, he has learned to play several other instruments, written almost a hundred original songs, and released three full-length CDs.

His most recent songs are found on his third CD release, Prairie Rain. Though still a collection of stories, these are told with few words spoken. All but one of its songs are instrumental. Brian says, âOne of the greatest challenges as a musician is to be able to convey emotions and pictures in music, and doing that with instrumental songs is even more difficult. How do you make a piano sound like a baby waking up, or a guitar sound like a hawk flying, or a dulcimer sound like a rainstorm? Thatâs what I was trying to achieve in this project â a collection of musical pictures of the emotions and stories I lived through over the last few years of my life. Different people may hear a different story if thereâs no words, but I hope everyone that listens hears something meaningful to them.â

The inspiration for many of the songs came from a journey Brian took with his wife to Scotland and Ireland in the summer of 2006, including a five-day stay on the profoundly spiritual island of Iona. Others were written for weddings, both his own and those of friends.

Brian is happily married, and has a baby daughter. Brian studied music and composition at Trinity Western University. Brian also teaches guitar and piano, and hopes one day to compose and conduct a choral symphony.