A new article from Popular Science talks to Stevie Wonder about his take on technology, music, and making both accesible to everyone. Besides my immeasurable love for Stevie, I love what he has to say about music gadgets. Also be sure to check out Stevie’s WonderVision Awards, which gives awards to companies with gadgets that are most accessible to the blind. Some highlights of the interview:
POPSCI: Would you say you are a geek?
WONDER: If it’s my love for discovering new and exciting things, finding new chords out on the keyboard, different kinds of music, using technology to do the work that I want to do—yeah, I could say that.
POPSCI: Have you always been interested in technology? Has it always been a part of your music, your art?
WONDER: What has always been interesting to me has been finding different ways of doing things that made for a different approach to the musical idea. Because to me, musical instruments and synthesizers and all those kinds of things are like different brushes or colors that an artist can use on a canvass.
POPSCI: Do you think the huge advances in technology in the past ten, twenty years have made life easier or harder for people who have any impairment? Or has it been a mixed bag?
WONDER: I think it’s definitely made life easier. But if you’re going to make products easier for a person who can see, to have this more convenient, then make it accessible for the person who is blind or deaf. I hear manufacturers say, “Oh, we forgot about that,” or “Oh, that’s interesting.” Well, think! Make your products a convenience for everyone. Be an all-inclusive company.
Stevie Wonder & Ray Charles “Livin for the City”
“You Are the Sunshine of My Life” (Live in London, 1974)
