#633 - "Harmonize"

An excellent puzzle written by one of the innovators of the meta crossword format. It comes out every Friday at noon and increases in difficulty throughout the month. Available for modest subscription (worth every cent) here: www.xwordcontest.com
User avatar
OGuyDave
Posts: 169
Joined: Thu Apr 11, 2019 9:03 am
Location: Naples

#81

Post by OGuyDave »

Same strategies as a lot of previous posters, including seeing "banjo" in "San Jose" right away. A nudge that I was in the right direction here, and I quickly found "flute" in "deflate", "organ" in "ivorian". A little after that, found "cello" in "callout". The substituted letters to get the instruments were "b", "u", "g", and "l", therefore I needed an "e" to get "bugle". So, seeing that the answer was a five-letter instrument, and these were all five-letter instruments, I tore the grid apart. The closest I could get was "didge" out of "didja". That's short for digeridoo. Never looked for, or saw any of the four-letter instruments. Glad to get a smiley on this one.
User avatar
tonyrobots
Posts: 149
Joined: Sun Dec 22, 2019 1:48 pm
Location: Portland, Oregon
Contact:

#82

Post by tonyrobots »

So, what was the "L" instrument after all? I found BUGE and figured that was good enough for BUGLE, but couldn't find a 5th 5-letter candidate. There is "ru(b)YREd" for "LYRE" and "distri(b)UTE" for "LUTE" but that seems rather...inelegant? What am I missing?

EDIT: Was just tipped off on the presence of crossings in the puzzle. Had *no* idea about the presence of ObOE, TuBA, GONg, or BeLL. Just solved by looking for the 4 letter substrings of 5 letter instruments, and using the substituted letters. Wow. Hoping for a better click on Friday.
Last edited by tonyrobots on Tue Jul 21, 2020 4:24 pm, edited 1 time in total.
User avatar
BarbaraK
Posts: 2592
Joined: Tue Apr 09, 2019 2:37 pm
Location: Virginia

#83

Post by BarbaraK »

I just realized that July is a 5 Friday month. If this is week 3, what will week 5 bring?
User avatar
OGuyDave
Posts: 169
Joined: Thu Apr 11, 2019 9:03 am
Location: Naples

#84

Post by OGuyDave »

OGuyDave wrote: Tue Jul 21, 2020 3:45 pm Same strategies as a lot of previous posters, including seeing "banjo" in "San Jose" right away. A nudge that I was in the right direction here, and I quickly found "flute" in "deflate", "organ" in "ivorian". A little after that, found "cello" in "callout". The substituted letters to get the instruments were "b", "u", "g", and "l", therefore I needed an "e" to get "bugle". So, seeing that the answer was a five-letter instrument, and these were all five-letter instruments, I tore the grid apart. The closest I could get was "didge" out of "didja". That's short for digeridoo. Never looked for, or saw any of the four-letter instruments. Glad to get a smiley on this one.
DOH! The Cello was the 'e', not the 'l'. My mind works (when, on rare occasion, it does work) in mysterious ways.
Dplass
Posts: 1739
Joined: Sat Dec 28, 2019 10:09 am

#85

Post by Dplass »

BarbaraK wrote: Tue Jul 21, 2020 4:17 pm I just realized that July is a 5 Friday month. If this is week 3, what will week 5 bring?
Matt said this week was more like a week 4 so next week will be a week 3. Then a "regular" week 5.
User avatar
Bird Lives
Posts: 2607
Joined: Tue Apr 09, 2019 6:43 pm
Location: NYC
Contact:

#86

Post by Bird Lives »

My first impulse was to take the title more literally. I saw the tone cluster D Eb E (aka D EFLAT E) and thought that it (and others I had not yet found) would be harmonized into triads like C E G. Bad idea. Or rather, good idea, just not Matt's idea.

I got on the right path almost by accident when I noticed that SAN JOSE could become BON JOVI. That led me to BANJO, and the rest fell into place.
Jay
User avatar
MajordomoTom
Posts: 1399
Joined: Sat Nov 02, 2019 12:09 am
Location: St. Louis, MO

#87

Post by MajordomoTom »

I had seen BANJO early on and thought, "hm, that's interesting", but took far too long to circle back to that.

But D1 (oldest daughter) is a professional flutist, so once I started on changing letters, I was able to figure it out.

Bothered me that it wasn't "in order" as he often (not always, but often) does. Once I had BU, I knew what it had to be. But finding that last E ... that was tricksy. Very tricksy.

Nasty hobbitses, trying to tricks me.
"Lots of planets have a North", the Ninth Doctor.
User avatar
KayW
Moderator
Posts: 3127
Joined: Wed Apr 10, 2019 12:10 am
Location: Chicago

#88

Post by KayW »

I thought the letters were in a "clockwise" order - forming a (rather warped) coil of a bugle?
Contest Crosswords Combating Cancer (CCCC) is a bundle of 16 metapuzzles created to help raise money for cancer-related charities. It is available at CrosswordsForCancer.com.
Locked