Music! Its Role and Importance in Our Lives

Chapter 9: Jazz

From the Top

Name: Reggie Berg
Age: 16
Instrument: Piano/Composition
Hometown: Auburn, IN

Reggie Berg on performing his composition I Lost You Two on the From the Top radio show:

Q: What are your thoughts and feelings about this piece of music?

A: I'm not the one playing it. I'm observing myself, watching a person's hands being moved from place to place on the piano keyboard. At the time of the performance, I consciously thought to myself "Imagine your father's van pulling out of the driveway and you standing their watching it all happen." My favorite part of the music is when I played this piece two years after writing it, and said to myself "This sounds so sad. How did I write it when I had never studied any theory?" Have you ever done something you couldn't explain and said "I don't know how I just did that?" Well, you weren't the one doing it, and if it happened once, it can happen continuously.

Q: What is unique or special about this piece of music?

A: What is most special about it is the musical, emotional, inspirational, and spiritual connection it has with the human soul. It was written out of the need for music. I was hurting, needed to be healed, so naturally I turned to the truest form of art-jazz music. Jazz music is so special, so authentic, and completely genuine because it's motivational force is the constant workings of right now! Right now...right now-right now, and of course, don't miss it when you blink, but right now! How does a jazz pianist accompany a horn solo? (There's no music for him to play?) No, no, no, it's simply a matter of reacting, without hesitation to the beauty surrounding us all. You just have to do it, but that is insanely difficult.

We're all in this together. We all share the same needs, wants, frustrations, and disappointments. We just share them at different places in our lives. The only point to get across in music is the common bond that we are all reaching, striving, and confused for trying so hard. It's a wonder why we all get so hung up for "not knowing something." After all, knowledge is something we made up. We tend to let things of the abstract rule our lives. It's just a game, man!

The hardest thing to be aware of in this piece is to be aware of everything, all the time. Man, it's all concentration. If you've ever thought it's hard to concentrate on one thing at a time, it's time to go do some mental push-ups. I'm not going to tell anyone what that means. You'll have to figure it out. The strain is good, its what we live for.

Q: What was it like preparing for and appearing on From the Top?

A: I was extremely surprised to be on the show. After all, I was considered a jazz pianist. And this was a classical musicians show? Uh....but oh yea, Christopher O'Riley does believe that the French piano music is "where it's at." P.S., he's right! It definitely is where it's at, all the colors, the impressions, and the imaginative creativity. I'm going to have to go to Paris and just hang out for a while. Thanks Mr. O'Riley.

The frustration of sharing something so heart wrenchingly deep in an interview (the story about my parents divorcing) in front of maybe a thousand people was very memorable. I learned at the same time, how to truthfully transcend pain into beauty. By being willing to share my story, the uninhibited version of it, I made many people realize that it's possible, okay, and the best thing to do is to simply open up. Let it all hang out it, and deal with it. The things we let go unattended will truthfully eat us alive if we let them. I'd hope that no one would wish that upon themselves.