It made it!

[HeliDood]

I don’t know how others feel, but for me it is somewhat of an honor for one of my caches to finally be featured in the Lonely Cache Game.

I really wish it would have had 20+ visitors by now, but also I’m quite grateful that there isn’t a puzzle solution floating around out there being shared.

GC22V8B

The cache has been there for a little less than a year and to date and still has just 4 finders. I figured it was just a matter of time before someone called it “lonely”.

[BigJim]

You’re welcome. If you look back at my finds, you’ll see that I was in that neck of the woods on October 30. I thought about grabbing that cache, but knew that if I did it would knock it off the eligibility list for the LCG. So I waited until November 1 to come back and make the find.

All opinions, comments, and useless drivel I post are mine alone and do not reflect the opinions of the WGA BOD.

[HeliDood]

I didn’t know that, Jim. Obviously I knew you found it November 1st, but was unaware it was part of the LCG at the time. I didn’t realize it was a Lonely cache until I looked at it today.

So, thanks Jim (and every other cacher in Wisconsin who avoided my cache for 6 whole months) for making my cache lonely. And congratulations to you for being the first to find it as an LC. (I hear thats worth some mad crazy points in the LCG).

I don’t know what it is about that cache that everyone is so afraid of it.. I suppose because it is a music puzzle. I guess it looks more complicated than it ism because it really isn’t.

I realize now that Music puzzles aren’t very geocache-friendly.. Believe it or not, there is an ammo can sitting in the woods (that I placed) chock full of swag, that has been sitting there for a year!
I began working on composing an original piece of music that would fit a (fairly) complicated puzzle.. I’m about 90% finished with it.. I lost my motivation to complete it after I saw how unpopular music puzzles really are. I think I told you about this Jim a few months back.
I don’t know what I’ll do with that cache.

[CodeJunkie]

I know nothing about music (just ask the people that move away from me in church), so unfortunately without some kind of nudge it’s not one I’d even think about solving. Definately not a reflection on you as the CO, but just one of those that I don’t even have a clue where to start.

Example:
Bars? I know what they are (based on a google search), but have no idea how this might be tied to any kind of numeric value.

[BigJim]

@HeliDood wrote:

I realize now that Music puzzles aren’t very geocache-friendly.. Believe it or not, there is an ammo can sitting in the woods (that I placed) chock full of swag, that has been sitting there for a year!
I began working on composing an original piece of music that would fit a (fairly) complicated puzzle.. I’m about 90% finished with it.. I lost my motivation to complete it after I saw how unpopular music puzzles really are. I think I told you about this Jim a few months back.
I don’t know what I’ll do with that cache.

Yes, I remember you telling me about that one. I think it was when we went to Oshkosh. If you don’t want to finish the music puzzle, publish it with a different puzzle (I’m partial to Sudoku, because anything tougher than that is outside of my scope 😆 ) Or make it a different kind of cache, multi maybe?

All opinions, comments, and useless drivel I post are mine alone and do not reflect the opinions of the WGA BOD.

[sandlanders]

Or put it out as a music puzzle. There will still be people who look for it. I’d be game. If it’s a good puzzle and you like it, do what you want.

One thing about your other cache, Helidood… It involves getting the information, checking for some stuff online, and then going back. I suppose people with mobile equipment could do it in one trip, but those looking at this cache who aren’t from the area might not want to try it if they couldn’t get it done in one shot. I’ve bypassed some neat-looking puzzle on our travels because I knew we couldn’t do them in the time we were in the area.

[HeliDood]

@CodeJunkie wrote:

without some kind of nudge it’s not one I’d even think about solving.

I’ll tell you what then, I can give you a nudge. I’ll explain it.

HUGE spoiler warning here. If you don’t like spoilers, stop reading now.

The only hint anyone needs is right on the cache page. “Be sharp and count to three” It’s a subtle hint for most, but should be a dead give away to anyone who understands music.

In music, we have notes. A through G, and sharps and/or flats in between.
We need to focus on ONLY sharps in this puzzle.

All the notes: (the # sign means ‘sharp’)
A, A#, B, C, C#, D, D#, E, F, F#, G, G#, then back to A and repeat.

Notice there is no B# or E#. They don’t exist. Picture what a piano keyboard looks like. See the black keys? See how there are gaps in the black keys? The black keys are in groups of two and three the whole length of the piano. Those gaps are where the notes B# and E# WOULD exist, but like I said, they don’t exist.

Back to B#. Since there is no such thing as B#, we’d simply go to the very next note, a C natural.

The hint “be sharp and count to three” means precisely “C = 3” So now we should have a good idea of how the number system might work.

A=1, B=2, C=3, D=4, and so on.

So now for the reading music part. I understand not everyone knows how to read music. I kept it simple for a reason.

Beginning music students, usually elementary level, learn a simple acronym for memorizing the names of notes on a staff:
Every Good Boy Does Fine. Those letters, EGBDF are the names of the notes for each LINE, starting from the bottom.

For the spaces between those lines, starting at the bottom, the notes are FACE. (no acronym, since face should be easy to remember)…

For this puzzle, that should be all a person needs to know.. Look at the notes on the staff, find the name of the note (a letter), convert that letter to a number.

I hope this helps.

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