This is an experimental puzzle. The overwhelming majority of puzzles in puzzlehunts are word or letter puzzles. There are a variety of reasons for this, but it means the same ground gets run over repeatedly, so I often try to think of ways to do puzzles that rely on other kinds of data for their core mechanism. Musical puzzles often involve identifying the song, with the next layer of the puzzle being related to the title, which puts us back into a word puzzle.
This is my attempt to create a musical puzzle that involves original music. The puzzle pieces don't involve the song's metadata (title, composer, how many times it's been covered, et cetera). It is the music itself that contains the information needed to solve the puzzle.
My intention is to present the puzzle sonically: the solver would listen to it being played, and solve from that. Presenting it as sheet music offers too many ways to get distracted; players might start trying to figure out if drawing lines between certain notes created a picture, or if the sharps and flats encoded a message, or if the note names were relevant. And, it turns it back into a pencil-and-paper puzzle. I wanted this to be more engaging of the senses, more interesting. Plus, it was a fascinating challenge as a composer: to embed information in a song steganographically that wouldn't disrupt the structure so badly that it was obvious where to look for the embedded information. It's a lot like introducing flaws into a crystal without ruining the crystal's beauty.
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Audio Audio, 1/2 speed |
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Sheet Music |
Since my intended audience for this is fairly broad, you do not need to have any specialized musical knowledge. If you do try to solve this by ear, you will need one supplemental tool, which is the grid shown above. (Yes, the final solution still involves words/letters. Nevertheless, this is not a word puzzle.) Since it is also possible to solve the puzzle using the sheet music, I have provided that as well. If you want to solve it by using the sheet music, then it would be helpful if you understand music notation at the level usually taught in grade school. What does it mean when there's a hash tag in front of a note, and what a half-note looks like, for example. That's about it. But remember, it can be solved just with the grid below and the audio file, so don't waste time looking at the pattern of the eighth-note bars, or what key signature it's in, or the like.
If you do try to solve the puzzle, I would very much like to know, whether you are successful or not. Use dh+puzzlesong@howell.seattle.wa.us to reach me. Also, I am more than happy to provide hints of varying degrees. As I said before, this is an experimental puzzle, and it may turn out that, as it stands, it's too hard, or too obscure, or too weird, to be considered a success.