Woozy's drunken merry-go-round

[woozy]

https://crosshare.org/crosswords/z4dvJD ... y-go-round

The meta is a musical theory term.

EXTRA CLUES TO ENTERED INTO THE GRID (BUT NOT IN EITHER ACROSS NOR DOWN LOCATIONS)

A. Father of the New Deal, Franklin Roosevelt, spoke of Speech, Religion, Fear and Want in a 1941 State of the Union address. Herbert Hoover responded and added Economic to the list as this
B. Charles Mossman is the protagonist of an Andrew Gross novel about this-- a group dedicated to undermining from within
C. Goes into overdrive with this
D. "Down-down-and right here" was certainly not a hit song for this pop group originally named The Versatiles
E. And this protects us from self-incrimination
F: Ends the list after Earth, Water, Air, Fire with Quintessence (literally this)
G: Battle of egos will never resolve whether this title should go to Stu Sutcliffe or Brian Epstein

Difficulty Rating: If you don't have a musical degree and you don't google--- impossible. If you google-- hmmm, I dunno. The term and concept is a little obscure (not a house-hold word) but I imagine with google it's not hard to guess. But I think its the "aftergame" when everything settles into place that would be fun.

[KayW]

Very creative! I think I might have backed into the answer so I'm looking forward to the full explanation. Your summation was spot-on for me - I don't know how long it would have taken me without the extra clues. But it was fun and doable to backsolve. Thanks!

[SamKat9]

Awesome puzzle! No music degree here though I did take AP music theory in high school lol. The extra clues were very helpful!

[benchen71]

I got it, but I can't wait to see the answer reveal to see how it everything fits together!

[whimsy]

Quite the ride! Thanks, woozy!

[woozy]

Again the "extra clues" weren't meant to hints or nudges. They are meant to be part of the puzzle. If CrossHare had allowed 3 columns Across, Down, Other I would have used it. ... and I guess I could have described as to to be entered in the grid.

Without them I suppose it *could* be solved but.... oh, cmon.

Anyway. Thanks for playing. Reveal will come.

[markhr]

Got it. No degree, but I guess playing in the high school band helped.

[Meg]

Piano lessons. Very clever construction!

[woozy]

I got it, but I can't wait to see the answer reveal to see how it everything fits together!

I'm afraid that will be a bit of a disappointment.

The answer is: CIRCLE OF FIFTHS

Reveal: There were three sets of clues. ACROSS, DOWN, and CLOCKWISE.

The answers to the CLOCKWISE CLUES are (fifth) FREEDOM, (fifth) COLUMN, (fifth) GEAR, (fifth) DIMENSION, (fifth) AMENDMENT, (fifth) ELEMENT, and (fifth) BEATLE. They fit in the grid along the (sort of) circular perimeter to make a CIRCLE OF FIFTHS which is the answer to the meta.

What's a circle of fifth and how the heck was anyone supposed to know it? Well, I warned you. If you google for musical theory terms and fifths it should have come up. According to Wikipedia

In music theory, the circle of fifths is a way of organizing the 12 chromatic pitches as a sequence of perfect fifths. (This is strictly true in the standard 12-tone equal temperament system — using a different system requires one interval of diminished sixth to be treated as a fifth). If C is chosen as a starting point, the sequence is: C, G, D, A, E, B (=C♭), F♯ (=G♭), C♯ (=D♭), A♭, E♭, B♭, F. Continuing the pattern from F returns the sequence to its starting point of C. This order places the most closely related key signatures adjacent to one another. It is usually illustrated in the form of a circle.

The circle of fifths organizes pitches in a sequence of perfect fifths, generally shown as a circle with the pitches (and their corresponding keys) in a clockwise progression. Musicians and composers often use the circle of fifths to describe the musical relationships between pitches. Its design is helpful in composing and harmonizing melodies, building chords, and modulating to different keys within a composition.

One affect is that it determines which sharps appear in key signature and which order to add them and using the order added sharps we get this progression:

No sharps (C major)
F sharp (G major)
C sharp (D major)
G sharp (A major)
D sharp (E major)
A sharp (B major)
E sharp ( F♯ major)
B sharp (C♯ major)

The common mnemonic for the this progression is Father Charles Goes Down And Ends Battle which correspond with the first words of the clockwise clues and the entries also begin with the same letters.

Nitpickers may note that this 7 entries do not account for the entire circle. Picky, picky, picky. Okay, it is creative license on my part which I justify by this particular usage and well known mnemonic.

If you are wondering (I can dream can't I) why chain of sharps go only a bit over half way, it is because after we have all seven sharps rather than continuing to "double sharps" we switch to viewing the sharps as flats of the higher notes and the progression we would have started adding "double sharps" is merely us removing flats.

Like this:

F sharp (G major)
C sharp (D major)
G sharp (A major)
D sharp (E major)

Now we have the B major scale with the F♯ C♯ G♯ D♯ and A♯ and the natural notes B and E. Now B can be viewed as C♭ and E as F♭ and the sharps F♯ C♯ G♯ D♯ and A♯ as G♭ D♭ A♭ E♭. So we can look at the B major scale with 5 sharps as the C♭ major scale with 7 flats.

Now each step up in the circle would serve to removing a flat. Like so

A sharp (B major) = (C♭ major) 7 flats (B♭ E♭ A♭ D♭ G♭ C♭ F♭)
E sharp ( F♯ major)= (G♭ major): E sharp is actually the note F. By adding E sharp that actually serves to remove the F♭ and refer to it as just E. So 6 flats (B♭ E♭ A♭ D♭ G♭ C♭)
B sharp (C♯ major)=(D♭ major) 5 flats. C♭ removed (leaving B♭ E♭ A♭ D♭ G♭) [same reason as above]

And we continue but only as flat key majors

(A♭ major) 5 flats G♭ removed (leaving B♭ E♭ A♭ D♭ )
(E♭ major) 3 flats D♭ removed (leaving B♭ E♭ A♭)
(B♭ major) 2 flats A♭ removed (leaving B♭ E♭)
(F major) 1 flat E♭ removed (leaving B♭)

which brings us back full circle to C major; no sharps and no flats.

Neat thing is the mnemonic for adding flats, B E A D F C is just the same for adding sharps in reverse: Battle Ends And Down Goes Charlie's Father. I once did not know that and I made up my own mnemonic Behind Every Acrobat Dogs Go Crazy Forever.

Tonic and Tra were not chosen for their musical connotations but as a tonic in music is the leading not of the key scale and is often used as a final release of tension and preluded by returning from a dominant fifth it does fit in so I made the clue give a hint.

.........

The title just refers to a Fifth being a measure of booze.

[SamKat9]

I really enjoyed this puzzle, thank you for constructing.