TOW#5: "Is Music the Key to Success?" By Joanne Lipman

What Do Musical Notes Have To Do With Success?

This opinionated article talks about how music has some relation with success. Lipman states that music teaches one collaboration and the ability to create new ideas. She also discusses how it teaches one to listen and to focus on the present and future all at the same time! She talks about very successful people like Steven Spielberg and how he played the clarinet and he is very successful. Now she mentions that being involved with music doesn't mean that one is going to be the next Bill Gates, but it is very important and could possibly lead one in another successful path.

Lipman isn't a musician so it may be hard to believe her at first. But she uses many examples of people to show the connection between music and success. This also makes her appeal to logos. She quotes Mr. Greenspan to show that an actual professional musician also believes that music has some relation to success. She uses people such as "The television broadcaster Paula Zahn (cello) and the NBC chief White House correspondent Chuck Todd (French horn) attended college on music scholarships..." (Lipman). This gives her credibility in a sense that she gives examples of actual people who are very successful and they were involved with music some time in their lives.

Music has been around for centuries and it still exists today. It has changed and still does change people's lives. Therefore, people are familiar with the subject of music and they can relate to this article because Lipman isn't talking about a subject that no one remembers or knows about. 

Lipman wanted to show the importance of music. She seems to have realized how people are taking music for granted and don't know how truly valuable it is. And to show that, she wrote this article. That's why she was reaching out to everyone. She wants people to appreciate music and to see it in another perspective, which is that music is not just some enjoyable tune but also educational is some ways. 

Although this was an opinionated article, Lipman achieved her purpose. Most importantly, she appealed to logos with helped her support her argument. She used people who were very successful and how those successful people played some type of instrument some time in their life. She explicitly states that it is not a consequence since it isn't just one or two successful people that have a connection with music but it is most of the successful people who have some relation to music.  

 (Anna Parini, credit)- Person is using music to walk towards success.