what kind of speaker are you using? (you could be trying to drive a speaker that needs more power)
instead try an LED instead of a speaker, this should allow you to see if it is playing or not.
What msp430 are you using, and did the IDE upload the sketch correctly?
as for the skill, if you can program an arduino you can program an msp430 with energia IDE with the same ease.
The Energia home page wiki notes that tone() is not currently working or implemented. As such, the melody sketch won't work.
Alternatively, the pin referenced in the melody sketch is pin 8, which translates to port 2, so port 2 pin 0? This requires a 20 pin msp430. You can try changing the 8 in "tone(8, melody[thisNote],noteDuration);" to 2 through 7 (p1.1 to p1.5), see if it works (if the wiki page is simply out of date)
And you want to read the "energia_pins.h" file inside "hardware/msp430/variants/launchpad/" for an idea how arduino pins convert to launchpad port/pins.
