Only a music maestro can figure out this melody is a music puzzle and the ninth puzzle of the 2022 Cryptex Hunt. It is presented as four measures of music and a short block of text.
Solve Paths
Musically-inclined solvers will likely attempt to identify a melody or the specific notes present in the musical passage. However, this is a complete red herring, as the notes themselves (ACDGF) don't spell anything, nor do they represent any real piece of music. Instead, solvers need to turn their focus to the tempo (the <"Quarter Note Equals 1" in the top left) of the piece. It actually indicates a way of indexing into the words in the lyrics. Assuming that a quarter note is equal to an index of 1, a half note is then 2, and a whole note is 4 (as they are twice and four times as long as a quarter note, respectively). Indexing the proper numbers (1/1/2/4/4) into the words results in the final answer of this puzzle.
Part 1 Final Answer: Click to revealTUNES.
At this point in the puzzle, the block of text under the music hasn't been used, and solvers may have some trouble identifying what references are being made. This is fine, as there really aren't any; instead solvers should notice the presence of the two dots at the end of the musical passage. That indicates to "repeat" the music. If they do just that, and repeat the indexing they did during the first part on the remaining text, solvers will get the phrase "GOOGLE SOLFA CIPHER".
The Solfa Cipher is a method used to encode text in musical passages. This is where the actual note content of the music comes into play. Using the letter chart near the bottom of this page, one can use the position of each note within the measure (specifically the beat on which the note starts) in combination with the pitch (C is "Do" in solfege notation) to decode the music.
