Tom Brier is an American ragtime pianist and composer. The hallmark of Brier's piano-playing style is an aggressive left hand that attacks the lower half of the piano keyboard in staccato, machine-gun-like octave passages. He alternates these voicings with a variety of other sounds: walking bass ("boogie"), single-note figures, and widely-spaced chords -- often both arpeggiated and unarpeggiated tenths. Born in Oakdale, California in 1971, Tom Brier was exposed to ragtime in his earliest years when his parents purchased a player piano.