XWord Muggles Forum

ky-mike wrote: ↑Mon Jan 25, 2021 10:44 am Trifecta!

After my daughter won a mug a few years ago and I won one last year, my wife (not on the forum) is today's mug winner. Congrats to her!

Congrats!

(Please PM me who you know and what their price is. )

Powers2020 wrote: ↑Mon Jan 25, 2021 11:13 am

ky-mike wrote: ↑Mon Jan 25, 2021 10:44 am Trifecta!

After my daughter won a mug a few years ago and I won one last year, my wife (not on the forum) is today's mug winner. Congrats to her!

Congrats to her indeed! On a related note, I'd love to join your family's Powerball/Mega Millions club!

After we win a couple, we will let you in the club

I thought I saw what to do while solving the grid, found NOTES at the END of various words —

DO in IDO
LA in OFLA
SO in RATSO (though personally prefer SOL)
MI In SAMRAIMI

Translating those to the C scale spells C-A-G-E ——- WAIT IT’S A TRAP!!!!

Since I was already fixated on finding notes, the letter ones at the end of 6 clues jumped out at me next. So I took the shortcut first.

If I hadn’t thought that I knew what to do, my normal m.o. would have been to write out the long answers on a separate sheet of paper and see what popped out. Then I would hopefully have followed the intended route, and got the order instead of anagramming. After reading BarbaraK’s tip-off post that we probably had the right answer but took a shortcut, went back and did just that, later on Thursday evening.

Had tried playing the notes in the order of MELODY in case that was supposed to give us the order and confirmation click, but it didn’t seem to.

Bird Lives wrote: ↑Mon Jan 25, 2021 9:23 am

ReB wrote: ↑Mon Jan 25, 2021 8:39 am
(Note: since the solfege syllables are a relative scale, where DO is the tonic of the relative major scale of the song. . . .

Only in America (well, not quite) because we use the "moveable do," a phrase which to me always suggests transferring liquid assets offshore for purposes of tax avoidance. (And yes, I know that "liquid assets" leaves this one wide open for Dr. Tom.)

Not sure of the practice in modern times outside of the U.S., but solfege goes back to the Middle Ages, originally with six notes (the first being UT rather than DO), and I'm quite sure it was relative pitch in its origins. It's always relative pitch in Sacred Harp, whether 4-shape or 7-shape traditions.

BethA wrote: ↑Mon Jan 25, 2021 11:32 am I thought I saw what to do while solving the grid, found NOTES at the END of various words —

DO in IDO
LA in OFLA
SO in RATSO (though personally prefer SOL)
MI In SAMRAIMI

Translating those to the C scale spells C-A-G-E ——- WAIT IT’S A TRAP!!!!

Glad I didn't quite see that, though I was also looking for solfege. As a guitar player, I would have thought that was a reference to the CAGED system and gotten quite lost in that rabbit hole!

BethA wrote: ↑Mon Jan 25, 2021 11:32 am .....

Had tried playing the notes in the order of MELODY in case that was supposed to give us the order and confirmation click, but it didn’t seem to.

I also plucked out D-E-G-B-A-C on the strings, hoping it would give me some clue as to the elegant path. It just led to musical realms I'm not fond of.

Though, if I've learned anything listening to live guitar solos from the late 60's, it's that playing dissonant notes sounds terrible the first time. But if you repeat the same notes over and over again, they start to sound cool, if not "innovative," to all the stoned listeners.

ReB wrote: ↑Mon Jan 25, 2021 11:37 am

Bird Lives wrote: ↑Mon Jan 25, 2021 9:23 am

ReB wrote: ↑Mon Jan 25, 2021 8:39 am
(Note: since the solfege syllables are a relative scale, where DO is the tonic of the relative major scale of the song. . . .

Only in America (well, not quite) because we use the "moveable do," a phrase which to me always suggests transferring liquid assets offshore for purposes of tax avoidance. (And yes, I know that "liquid assets" leaves this one wide open for Dr. Tom.)

Not sure of the practice in modern times outside of the U.S., but solfege goes back to the Middle Ages, originally with six notes (the first being UT rather than DO), and I'm quite sure it was relative pitch in its origins. It's always relative pitch in Sacred Harp, whether 4-shape or 7-shape traditions.

You know more about this than I do. I'm just thnking of all those "Sonate en la majeur" or "Quartetto in Fa Maggiore," giving solfege names to keys we would designate with letters -- A minor, F major.

We got it the shortcut way. I spent a lot of time looking for dos and res but never isolated the last letters of the words each of long answers. I will still count this solve as a win.

Which leaves me to a question, on two of the past puzzles I thought we were on shore but we were on the wrong shore. Should I go back to update the records? I am sure there will be many more times in the future that this will happen .

Al Sisti wrote: ↑Mon Jan 25, 2021 1:40 am

Joe Ross wrote: ↑Sun Jan 24, 2021 9:17 pm

Al Sisti wrote: ↑Sun Jan 24, 2021 11:27 am

Well thanks a boatload, Chet; I was supposed to go grocery shopping and instead I'm lost in YouTube land. Great stuff... I love belters (e.g., Idina Menzel, Linda Eder, Eydie Gorme and the little powerhouse from the Phillipines, Lea Salonga). And now a little payback for you. If you like good harmonies, check out Foxes and Fossils, starting with " "Don't Worry Baby" . And for another example of non-English-speaking mimicry, check out Leonid and Friends, a Russian band that does killer Chicago covers... here's "25 Or 6 to 4" . And now I've really got to go grocery shopping.

You've got every penny's worth of payback, today, Lochinvar. I haven't bought groceries and may have forgotten to feed the dog, until I remembered my son picked her up a long while ago.

A bit of harmony over which I've been obsessing (trigger warning: religiousy stuff) the last few weeks, especially the note ("here") held by top tenor from 3:35 through 3:52. Some guys know how to ride out a pandemic.

Man... so beautiful!

That was beautiful! I am married to a tenor and I love to hear him sing.

Arrived at LEYDMO island, but [slap-to-head] never the next step onto the beach.
Kinda like staring at the nearby end-zone, but opting to pull an MVP QB off the field and kick for short points, just when you need them most.

Fabulously well-constructed puzzle. Doff of the cap to Mister Shenk.

ky-mike wrote: ↑Mon Jan 25, 2021 10:44 am Trifecta!

After my daughter won a mug a few years ago and I won one last year, my wife (not on the forum) is today's mug winner. Congrats to her!

Wow!

Congrats to the winner of the mug. Now I won’t need to check my email every hour through Thursday!

While I did see the movie “Sound of Music” in my youth, I quickly discarded using do, re mi etc. as part of the analysis. It was unnecessary and, for some, misleading due to the missing fa.

The elegance of this puzzle was that there was no need for a musical background. Thanks, Mike!

I saw the notes and unscrambled. I was apparently the first of many to do so. Because I got the right answer, I'm counting it as a solve.

I hadn't seen the notes hidden in the grid, but I really should have because it's the same mechanic that was used last week. D'oh.
If I wasn't so sure about MELODY being correct, I would have spent more time looking for confirmation.

BethA wrote: ↑Mon Jan 25, 2021 11:32 am I thought I saw what to do while solving the grid, found NOTES at the END of various words —

DO in IDO
LA in OFLA
SO in RATSO (though personally prefer SOL)
MI In SAMRAIMI

Translating those to the C scale spells C-A-G-E ——- WAIT IT’S A TRAP!!!!

Since I was already fixated on finding notes, the letter ones at the end of 6 clues jumped out at me next. So I took the shortcut first.

If I hadn’t thought that I knew what to do, my normal m.o. would have been to write out the long answers on a separate sheet of paper and see what popped out. Then I would hopefully have followed the intended route, and got the order instead of anagramming. After reading BarbaraK’s tip-off post that we probably had the right answer but took a shortcut, went back and did just that, later on Thursday evening.

Had tried playing the notes in the order of MELODY in case that was supposed to give us the order and confirmation click, but it didn’t seem to.

Wait! Cage is a musical term. He wrote Organ/As Slow As Possible (ASLSP). The song started in 2001 and is scheduled to have a duration of 639 years, ending in 2640. It's currently playing the 14th chord, which it will hold until Feb 25, 2022. Save the date.

I first saw 67A and had a flashback to “Color Code” from last July 27. No Morse code solution this time, though.
Then I went through the grid looking for As, Bs and Cs, looking for the “end notes” in the C Major scale. No dice. Never thought to look back at the clues, and so missed the route to the anagrammed solution. I never would have found the elegant one.
Congrats to those who made it to shore.

Al Sisti wrote: ↑Mon Jan 25, 2021 1:06 pm
Wait! Cage is a musical term. He wrote Organ/As Slow As Possible (ASLSP). The song started in 2001 and is scheduled to have a duration of 639 years, ending in 2640. It's currently playing the 14th chord, which it will hold until Feb 25, 2022. Save the date.

I’d never heard of that, but found it in Wikipedia! At first I thought it was some type of humor going over my head...

Fortunately I abandoned that path for the meta because I couldn’t find any more legitimate notes at the ends to get to 6 letters.

Damn. I took the shortcut. Had a late start, saw the end notes in the clues, and mapped the end letters to MELODY. On metas where I found the letters out of order, I usually go back and validate the order, but due to my late start, and no time this weekend, I never did so.

Like we say in poker, I'd rather be lucky than good. Although I'd much rather be lucky AND good.

I am musically (unless you count listening as a skill) inept which is why I never even tried MMMM. I didn’t know there was a need to specify Key of C because I thought DO,RE,MI,FA,SOL,LA,TI,DO was the same in any Key. However checking with Mr. G I find that I know about a moveable feast but not a moveable DO (I leave that for my financial advisor) so I never realized there was anything except the DO to DO scales man.

It didn’t matter because, regardless of the complete oddity of the long answers, as soon as I got a sniff of the end of the A,B,C,D,E,G (I still don’t completely understand why they got the …oh, never mind it sounds dirty when you say it) lines I could not take my eyes off Melody (she was rather disturbed by that but I told her I would stop once I sent in my answer). Like others though I had that nettling feeling that it was wrong (a la Saint Nicholas) because it did not follow the usual rules. After someone confirmed I was right they suggested I look at the long answers and then of course the music played.

I suppose this gets a 4.5 out of a possible 5 because of the fact that it could be solved the “easy” way, but I am here to tell you that even the “easy” way a year or so ago would have been, “these people are NUTS, how does one get that!!!!” – I am glad that my tune has changed.

Bird Lives wrote: ↑Mon Jan 25, 2021 9:23 am

ReB wrote: ↑Mon Jan 25, 2021 8:39 am
(Note: since the solfege syllables are a relative scale, where DO is the tonic of the relative major scale of the song. . . .

Only in America (well, not quite) because we use the "moveable do," a phrase which to me always suggests transferring liquid assets offshore for purposes of tax avoidance. (And yes, I know that "liquid assets" leaves this one wide open for Dr. Tom.)

Well what do you know, I posted a moveable DO reference, with about the same segue, without first seeing yours. It is actually quite scary that we tend to think alike. It should certainly frighten one of us! Oh, and liquid assets, I would not even beGIN to try to dRUM up some tangential reference to alcoholic beverages. I thought about employing pharmaCOGNACy terms but that was too difficult and was afraid that if I did you would picture me in the lab sitting on the incubator hoB EERily thinking up words. So instead I'll just go down to the ocean for a harBOUR BON voyage party.

Isaac and I became great friends this weekend!
There is always next week!

There were do, ra/re, me/mi, so, fa, la, te/ti's all over this grid. A kind nudge to look at the clues and an anagram later, and out popped MELODY. This was one of the best metas in a while because you knew where to look, but there were still many rabbits to chase.