"Scale Back" - April 29, 2022

[Olof]

Many have commented that "doCENT" was their hint to this one. For me it was "doSENT" , and I spent a while thinking about homonyms until I had a very 'Doh!' moment. And then another 'Doh!' moment realizing that it is 'sol' and not 'so'. Homonyms, y'all!

[dk letter]

A most noteworthy meta! As I said before, one of my all-time faves even though it took awhile. That TRIAD in the center was a devilish deke.

Same here - great puzzle, would have been even more enjoyable if not for the TRIAD red herring!

[yodarkrutch]

Looked for the scale in the puzzle itself. I also saw a lot of "Las." Par for the course. I didn't see the oatmeal my wife made yesterday either, sitting there in the pot while I fried my eggs. I also thought "Guide arrives at concealed crown" might get somewhere. Success rate remains a dismal twice in four months.

Y

[mrmd]

I didn’t even see that the second halves of the words were in the grid - I just went with Do + ? = guide. *So* clever.

[Cruciverbalisticexpi]

Just like many others, it was Do-Cent for me as well that made it click. Though I did initially have the false answer that included the clue Ti-ara in the grid, and "thered" seemed so random it just had to be part of the scheme. I have that word docent, as a museum worker, drilled into my brain ever since I was like 19/20 and my mom was asking what that term was for employees there and I didn't know but she kept asking me the whole week and drove me crazy. We eventually figured it out and I now I can never forget it.

[Bird Lives]

[Barney]

Kas 10.

Also the number of million years it would have taken me to get this.

[Gman]

I was so convinced that the starred clues each began with a letter note (e.g. G, A, C, etc.) that I wrote FRIVIAL to fit the pattern. Note to self, if a word only appears in the Urban Dictionary, you are probably chasing the wrong bunny. TAPS and TRIAD also provided lots of musical meta contortions. Alas, DO-CENT saved me.

[ship4u]

When my wife asked me what a musical scale was, I replied that it was like that song, "Doe, a deer....." and that got me started.
Docent popped out as the first asterisk clue. Mike Shenk gave us the additional hint of placing CENT in the bottom right of the grid. For me it made doCent even more clear.
Very challenging, but magnificent puzzle.

Edit:But, of course, the fantastic Friday Zoom with fellow muggles put the icing on the cake.

[Wendy Walker]

My red herring was as follows:
There are seven duplicate words in the clues: ACID, GARDEN, SERIES, SMALL, UP, TOOL, and SUPPORT.
I thought these HAD to be significant because:
(1) there were seven of them, same as the number of asterisked clues AND same as the number of notes in a scale, and
(2) the clue wording seemed crafted just to get the duplicate in -- why else would you clue ACNE using "acid" and ENOLA using "series"?
Did anyone else see this?

[minimuggle]

I agree with others that it was docent that did it for me. I immediately thought docent when I saw the clue about museum. Then it fell into place when I saw "cent". The last one that I got was "reaches" but that was my fault because I erroneously thought I was looking for a Finish to "mi" and not to "re". Once I realized my mistake I swam to shore. This was the type of puzzle that was all about finding the mechanism. I felt lucky to have found it, but now I feel a bit simple when I see Wendy's red herring. It takes a wizard to see 7 duplicate words in clues.

[MaineMarge]

Knowing Mike’s penchant for using the clues, I dove right in there. Guess what I found?
SEVEN music related words: tune, measures, beats, times, signature, chord, and key.
Surely that’s the KEY to the meta, I thought. Not to be. A minor problem. Actually major.

Then I tried circling the notes of the scale in the themers. No tiara for me with that one.
So it was on to Do-Re-Mi where I finally reached the method with docent as my guide.
I loved this one, Mike!
No wonder our non-musical Muggles had hard times with this.

[pjc]

Count me on the DOCENT train - that's what got me to the solve!

I did have the hardest time finding REACHES, though - I kept looking for something to form a word where RE was the first syllable; finally realized that it wasn't RE-ACHES - it was REACHES and that was the final snap in place.

[ship4u]

As others have mentioned, TRIAD was a distraction. Another was BEGAT located in the exact center of the grid. If you remove the G you are left with BEAT. When describing a musical scale, the whole steps and half steps are sometimes indicated using the letters S and T, for semi-tone and whole tone. That lead me to looke closely at the odd entry 12D, SSTS, and wonder if it was a hint to look at the entries of S and T in the grid.
All good fun and grist for the mill. In other words, rabbit food.

[eagle1279]

Knowing Mike’s penchant for using the clues, I dove right in there. Guess what I found?
SEVEN music related words: tune, measures, beats, times, signature, chord, and key.
Surely that’s the KEY to the meta, I thought. Not to be. A minor problem. Actually major.

I spent lots of time on this as well, then trying to find TRIADs (I think ACE is the only actual triad in the grid), then I noticed that LATEST with one letter changed becomes LATENT (synonym of CONCEALED) so I looked for other theme-answer synonyms with one letter changed. Finally I saw that TI-ARA would be a synonym for CROWN. As my list of scale notes grew, I was close to submitting SOLFEGE before seeing C_NTATA (never got RE-ACHES but what else could it be? CINTATA? CONTATA?).

Quite a challenge, no shame for anyone who didn't see it.

[ship4u]

When you wander into a bookstore and you can't find the book you are looking for, you are probably in the:

Sorry, @Barney started it......

[Jace54]

I also got detoured by “triad”, but I do not see that anybody else has commented on Taps at 1A. That song only uses three notes, which I learned from Google is the C Major triad (notes C, E, and G). Took me a long time to give up on that path.

I found the way through tiara and minor, because those entire words were actually included in the puzzle if you look at the letters by “ara” and “nor”. I also found the word “hidden” in the upper left, which would have worked as an alternate answer for “concealed”. Eventually the “cent” answer told me that it was just the actual answers with the notes added to the front.

[MikeM000]

How many others looked for LACE in the grid, since one does not pull a needle and thread with one's sol-ing kit....

[michaelm]

Thought this would be a relatively tough meta for someone not familiar with Mike Shenk puzzles and don't believe I would have solved had it been a first meta exposure.
The strategically placed CENT certainly didn't hurt in the least.
Based on comments above, however, getting lost in the clue woods (words?) seemed to have offset any familiarity advantage for many.
As always, grateful for the wondrous creators who have brought about this wonderful community!

[EVJ]

No one has mentioned my rabbit hole which was so convincing for awhile. I thought it was quite elaborate but nowhere near as elaborate as Wendy’s.
I saw the following words in the grid:
Viola
Coronet
Guitar
Piano
Capo
They all ran through and around the asterisk words.
And “hidden” as already mentioned above.
I tried to make this work for quite awhile to no avail.
DO RE MI FA SOL LA TI was an early consideration that got zero traction in the first hour so without traction I just moved on only to have to come back to it in the end.
Looking back it is so obvious. And DOCENT and TIARA were my first impulses rather than GUIDE and CROWN.
I kept thinking “GUIDE?” Really?!? I should know by now that when something just doesn’t ring true it’s a huge clue.
This was lots of fun and I learned a lot.
Good luck to all on the mug.