Excerpt From The Book Life: Keith Richards

Analysis of Text 2

In the excerpt from the book life: Keith Richards the author, Keith Richards, discusses his opinions on music and music genres. He uses logos, metaphors and a break in tone to show that Music should not be written down.
In the first part of the excerpt Richards uses personal anecdotes and diction to convince that audience that music should not need to be written down. The first sentence states that he, the text the contraction I’ve is used, has “learned everything I (he) know off of records” (Richards, ln1). All though not stated, as supported by the rest of the text Richards is referring to everything that he knows about music was learned from records. The fact that Richards is a musician strengthens the use of “I” “I’ve”
In the beginning of this section the author again uses himself as a musician to support his claim. Stating that “recorded music freed up (…) musicians that couldn’t necessarily afford to learn to read or write music like me (him)” (Ln 3-4). Since Richards is a musician of prominence by saying that he would not have been able to lean music without recorded, he is implying that there might have been others in the past that were limited by money that could have produced good music. The next part discusses the difference viewed in the past in the number of musicians available before. Stating that “before 1900 you’ve got Mozart, Beethoven, Bach, Chopin, The cancan” (ln 4-5). Richards uses a very limited selections of composers to show how limited the range was. While there were more composers available before 1900 Richards only uses this selection as it appears to the reader that there was little to now choice in music before. The fact that one of the composers he sites is actually a dance, is uses as an element of comedy to show that the range was so limited that the author ran out of ideas and put in something old that was related to music. Later on the author discusses cost again, stating that recorded music was necessary, as live music is too expensive. He talks about how for recorded music anyone could be a musician as long as they “could afford a machine” (ln 6) “otherwise you would have to go to a concert hall, and how many people could afford that?” (ln 100) the use of rhetorical questions make reader realise that not many people could, however the use of “a” shows that it was one thing. The fact that it was singular inferred that it was one purchase and not the multiple trips needed to re-listen to music from a concert hall. The author continues to specify a genre that embodies the “emancipation”