The seeds for Reynolds' focus on music were planted almost by accident when his father, an architect, recommended that he purchase some phonograph records. These recordings, including a Vladimir Horowitz performance of Frédéric Chopin's A-flat Polonaise, spurred Reynolds to take up piano lessons with Kenneth Aiken. Aiken demanded that his students delve into the cultural context behind the works of classic keyboard literature they played. Around the time that Reynolds graduated from high school in 1952, he performed a solo recital in Detroit that consisted of the Johannes Brahms "Sonata in F minor", some "Intermezzi", the Franz Liszt 6th "Rhapsody", as well as works by Claude Debussy, and Chopin. Reynolds remembers: