 Among his former students there are some prize-winners of national and international competitions.Brainin is a researcher in microtonal music.Russian poet (also known as Valeri (Willi) Brainin-Passek), a pupil of Arseny Tarkovsky, a member (1985–1990) of Moscow Club „Poezia“ () together with Yuri Arabov, Jewgenij Bunimovitch, Mikhail Epstein, Alexandr Eremenko, Sergey Gandlevsky, Nina Iskrenko, Timur Kibirov, Alexei Parshchikov, Dmitri Prigov, Lev Rubinstein, a. o.