Jose Antonio founded 35 years ago in Venezuela youth orchestra that according to his bio has “transformed thousands of kids’ lives in Venezuela.” In the TED Talk that this essay analyzes, he gives a speech recounting that journey, and also gives insight into what he believes would have an impact all around the world on students. He uses the personal anecdote of what he was able to do in Venezuela to challenge a change in the education system all over the word. This essay analyzes the rhetorical techniques that Antonio employs in order to make his point and convince his audience in the value of his beliefs.
He begins by personalizing everything he is about to say by speaking of his desire since his childhood to become a musician. “Ever since I was a child, I always wanted to be a musician,” he said. He was able to become one, but he gives credit to his teachers, his parent, his neighbors and everyone in his community. He attributes having the necessary support as crucial to becoming a musician. He brings a high level of Ethos in being able to say what sort of environment and encouragements an aspiring musician needs, since he himself became a musician.
He then using his own story to appeal to his audiences Pathos, by saying that he wishes that every child in Venezuela had the same opportunities that he had. He uses the technique of contrast by comparing his on life to the life of children in Venezuela who might not have had the same opportunities to that he had.
Then he relates another anecdote about how when he started the Venezuela Youth Choir, how he had been given a donation of fifty music stands, but that only 11 students showed up, leading them to have more stands than needed. It was then he said, 35 years ago, that he made a promise. The promise was that either the orchestra would disband right then, or they would persevere to become one of the most prominent orchestras in the word.
Antonio’s preferred rhetoric technique seems to be to relate anecdotes. This is a good way to connect with an audience, since people relate to the world and one another at the level of narrative.
He employs the technique of contrast again the past and the present. He relates how in Latin America music is no longer a monopoly of elite. He uses magnanimous language to describe this saying that music is now “A basic human right.”
Antonio compares the benefits of what music does to the individual to what the benefits of music are for society when it is a society made of music makers. If people can play music together, he says, they can peacefully co-exist. It helps a child’s self esteem and allows him to grow his ethical sensibilities. In these points, the speaker appeals to the audience’s logos, but applying logical reasons why music’s importance transcends its individual benefits.
He appeals more to the audience’s pathos by listening a series of anecdotes of successful graduates of his program who have gone on to do great things with the music that they learned in the Venezuela Youth Orchestra.
The program is a program of social rescue he says, because it serves 300,000 youth in Venezuela, providing them ostensibly music education, but also providing them with the skills like self-esteem that can accompany successful music education.
He appeals to both the audience’s pathos and logos by listing three areas that Venezula’s “El Sistema” or music system benefits the country. He using the organizational technique of organizing these benefits into three points that easily breaks them down for the audience. The first he relates is in personal relationships. Also in the family and the community.
Antonio also uses repetition to convey his message. He continues to paraphrase his basic point, that “Music is an integral development for a child.” He again appeals to his audience’s pathos by saying that a lack of roof and bread that accompanies poverty is not the worst part of poverty; it is feeling that you are no one.
He presents this problem, and offers music as a solution to the feeling that a person is no one. Finally, relates that music education for a child is beneficial to a child’s family. A child then can become a role model for his own parents. He ends by summarizing his points, that music is a pathway for children to achieve their dreams. He asks his audience to follow his logic, that music for kids is a pathway out of poverty. He makes this claim clear that he is not just the poverty of low-self esteem, but is talking about real material poverty.
Antonio is very talented at using anecdotes, instead of figures and graphs, to tell individual stories that support his overall message. His message is the music can change societies and create professionals out of poverty. His is successful in conveying this point through his stories and his use of Pathos, Logos and Ethos in different ways.
Source:
Antonio , Jose . "Ken Robinson: 10 talks on education." TED: Ideas worth spreading. N.p., n.d. Web. 30 Jan. 2014. <http://www.ted.com/playlists/124/ken_robinson_10_talks_on_educ.html
