Unleash Your Inner Diva

[DBMiller]

I could not have spelled the word correctly but found it after a little Googling.

Oh but really you should have been able to.

► Show Spoiler

look carefully at step one and the meta confirms itself

[Abide]

I meant before I started the puzzle I could not have spelled the word correctly, having only the faintest inkling that such a word existed.

[gpj73]

Anyone out there on a lazy Sunday afternoon to help a muggle in need at the 11th hour? We’re baffled by this one. We seem to have a clear step one, and then … nothing.

[sharkicicles]

As I said on fiend…

“I submitted TONE COLOR/TIMBRE. Never had heard of the actual answer but got the colors right away and googling “music color’ gave me about 50 responses with that and zero of the actual answer. Not the puzzle’s fault, just my fault for not having any knowledge in that domain.”

[BethA]

Yes, I’ve been to the opera, but I learned this term from my Sunset Casserole Cookbook —

[MMe]

. My dad always thought he was clever to refer to my mom's version of that dish as Chicken Tetrachloride.

[DBMiller]

After looking for women's names at first (Amber, Tea, uh...), I gave up. While I was away from the puzzle my brain picked up that they were all colors. I was also thinking about timbre, and I kept going to the line from Harry Chapin's "Mr. Tanner"... "His voice lacks the range of tonal color to make it consistently interesting."

Could it be "Tonal color???". Wouldn't the grid have some sort of confirmation? Wait, isn't there something called colorature, or something like that? Oh... Think think think since I don't have the puzzle on me. Amber, Teal, Umber, Red, and Aqua! Color+A+T+U+R+A! Nice meta!

[rjy]

I know it'll show up in his email, probably tomorrow, but I stumbled onto this today and had to share - who'da thunk?? Pretty great!

[MMe]

Holy smokes that is a great video/performance/arrangement/idea. And all that for a crossword puzzle... incredible. Pete for President!

[KayW]

I solved the puzzle pretty quickly, but I happened to know that term so it easily popped into mind when I spotted the colors. I wondered how commonly known COLORATURA was, because it seemed to me it would be impossible to come up with the answer if you didn't know the word. As a test, I googled "musical term atura" - which is probably what I would have done if I didn't know it - and found nothing. I finally found COLORATURA by going to an online glossary of musical terms and searching for the string ATURA on that page.

I'm one of the musical dinosaurs who hasn't heard of many of Pete's "newer" (post-1985 haha) meta answers, and I'm grateful whenever the answer can be directly derived from the puzzle. So I really feel for anyone who didn't know this word.

[mattythewsjpuzzler]

I solved the puzzle pretty quickly, but I happened to know that term so it easily popped into mind when I spotted the colors. I wondered how commonly known COLORATURA was, because it seemed to me it would be impossible to come up with the answer if you didn't know the word. As a test, I googled "musical term atura" - which is probably what I would have done if I didn't know it - and found nothing. I finally found COLORATURA by going to an online glossary of musical terms and searching for the string ATURA on that page.

I'm one of the musical dinosaurs who hasn't heard of many of Pete's "newer" (post-1985 haha) meta answers, and I'm grateful whenever the answer can be directly derived from the puzzle. So I really feel for anyone who didn't know this word.

It was impossible for me. I got the colors and saw atura but didn’t know the term and therefore didn’t even google it. My mistake!

[KayW]

I solved the puzzle pretty quickly, but I happened to know that term so it easily popped into mind when I spotted the colors. I wondered how commonly known COLORATURA was, because it seemed to me it would be impossible to come up with the answer if you didn't know the word. As a test, I googled "musical term atura" - which is probably what I would have done if I didn't know it - and found nothing. I finally found COLORATURA by going to an online glossary of musical terms and searching for the string ATURA on that page.

I'm one of the musical dinosaurs who hasn't heard of many of Pete's "newer" (post-1985 haha) meta answers, and I'm grateful whenever the answer can be directly derived from the puzzle. So I really feel for anyone who didn't know this word.

It was impossible for me. I got the colors and saw atura but didn’t know the term and therefore didn’t even google it. My mistake!

My sympathies. Even if you HAD googled it, odds are you would not have found anything helpful.

[Cindy N]

I solved the puzzle pretty quickly, but I happened to know that term so it easily popped into mind when I spotted the colors. I wondered how commonly known COLORATURA was, because it seemed to me it would be impossible to come up with the answer if you didn't know the word. As a test, I googled "musical term atura" - which is probably what I would have done if I didn't know it - and found nothing. I finally found COLORATURA by going to an online glossary of musical terms and searching for the string ATURA on that page.

I'm one of the musical dinosaurs who hasn't heard of many of Pete's "newer" (post-1985 haha) meta answers, and I'm grateful whenever the answer can be directly derived from the puzzle. So I really feel for anyone who didn't know this word.

It was impossible for me. I got the colors and saw atura but didn’t know the term and therefore didn’t even google it. My mistake!

After a nudge to a better list of terms, solved as soon as I saw it, a term I knew but had forgotten. But thinking about it, I realized that diva (very often) refers to opera singers, so I googled something along the line of diva/opera terms/color and up it popped.