Passion and Control in Little Stevie Wonder's "Fingertips, Part 2"

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Kevin Fennell talks about this electrifying, ecstatic recording by Little Stevie Wonder and shows how we can learn from it for our own lives. The paper is based on this principle by the founder of Aesthetic Realism, Eli Siegel: "All beauty is a making one of opposites, and the making one of opposites is what we are going after in ourselves.” It was originally presented in the Opposites in Music class taught at the Aesthetic Realism Foundation in New York City.

Fennell tells us: "In this song, Stevie Wonder, with his voice and with harmonica triumphantly, mischievously making its way through the sound of that massive, many-colored orchestra, is standing for the desire in every one of us to feel that we will be fully ourselves not by absenting ourselves from reality, but by diving in—hoping to meet it with all of ourselves. We are being told to say 'Yeah!' to life—to existence itself."

See Kevin Fennell’s website, http://kevinfennell.net/papers-on-rock-and-roll/.

Aesthetic Realism on Music—Sources:
—Visit the lecture “Animate and Inanimate Are in Music and Conscience,” by Eli Siegel (first section) in: http://www.aestheticrealism.net/tro/more-life.html,
—Dr. Edward Green writes on Duke Ellington: http://www.edgreenmusic.org/Articles/Ellington_Essay.pdf.
—Barbara Allen’s classic essay “The Opposites In the Flute” is in http://www.barbaraallen.org/The-Flute.html.
—“Why Do the Blues Make Us Feel So Good?” was written by pianist and scholar Alan Shapiro: http://alanshapiromusic.net/music-education/why-do-the-blues-make-us-feel-so-good/.

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