Yes, another absurd local geocache:

The music is made up of distorted single-line electric guitar improvisations over a clean chorus/delay backing track. Although the improvisations themselves do not repeat, there is a distinct melody containing 14 notes that repeats twice.

Identify those 14 notes, in sequence.

This would be easy, had I any musical knowledge whatsoever!

Any help would be much appreciated!

Thanks!

can't seem to open the file

I think he meant .mp3 and not .jpg.

Ooops.. fixed.

Cheers

Mmm... lots of downloaders, but so far no help with the notes.. darn!

Oh, sorry it took me so long. I read the message while at work and didn't remember to download the file when I got home. The bump was all I needed.

The melody repeats twice, once at 00:49 and once at 01:55. The notes are:

A     B    F#   F#(Octave)



G#   D#    E



D#    B    G#    C



F#    A    G#

Mmm.. here's some more information:

The musical key of the melody is the first letter (only one valid possibility) of
one of the directional headings North, East, South, West. (E??)

There are 9th notes in the secret melody. Treat these as a major second off
the root note one octave up.

They are the highest notes in the scale and should be easy to discern.

The scale used in the secret melody is the major scale (in the key discussed above) also known as Ionian mode.

Does any of that change anything, notes-wise?

Lastly, these Notes must eventually map into a set of coordinates, some of the digits of which are KNOWN (or "given"):

The first seven notes: 45 29.???
The second seven: 75 3?.???

So, letmesee: if the first note(4) is "A", then the first note of the second seven has to be three notes higher (7) , which is "D". Good.

And the second note of each half (5 for both) should be one higher than "A", which it is ("B"). So far, so good.

But the F# F#(octave) confuses me slightly, as it should map to "29", I think.
Assuming that's okay anyway, I get 45 29.378 and 75 36.243 as the coordinates. But the "36" looks unlikely -- I was expecting a smaller value than "6" in that digit.

Do the extra clues make a difference to your ear now?

Thanks Tony!

Let's see. The notes in E Maj. are:

E F# G# A B C# D#

Which leads us to:

452?371
753?243

That Octave F# would be known as a 9th note, but I don't really follow the clue.

Also, you'll notice the C doesn't fall into the scale he's using. Maybe that one was misheard. (I don't really have a good ear, so I'm not going to venture a guess.) Also, for completeness' sake, C is the only note between B and C#; that is, there's no such thing as B#. (Those of you who know why that's not 100% true, keep it to yourselves; that information isn't going to help here.)

What about the other seven notes, Bitt?

EDIT: nevermind, I just clued in to what you were saying.

I think the clue says to treat the F#(octave) the same as F#, or as a "2" in this case. Does that make sense to anyone who actually knows anything about notes notations? (like Bitt or Tony or..)

Thanks!

I don't understand. I listed 14 answers, including 2 I-don't-knows. There are only seven notes in the major scale. Then they just repeat themselves in different octaves in the same order.

You'll sometimes hear of 2nd notes in a higher octave referred to as 9th notes (also 4th and 11th).

That makes sense, but it's too obvious to me. A 9th is a 2nd. But maybe he's just being ultra-clear.

>That Octave F# would be known as a 9th note, but I don't really follow the clue.

Ah.. in otherwords, just keep numbering into the next octave, so the "F# octave" would be "9" in this case.

E F G A B C D E F

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

Well, yes and no. I suppose it doesn't make any difference to the puzzle, but you never refer to an 8th note or a 10th note. I've never heard of anyone referring to anything but a 9th and 11th above 7th, and then only in certain circumstances. But that's the idea, at least.

For this puzzle, it is GIVEN that the first group of numbers are 45 29.???, so the F#octave thingie has to map to a "9" in whatever cipher is used here. so that cipher makes sense, at least that far.

But I'm still getting in trouble with the second group of notes -- something is not quite right there. The solution of "75 36.243", which is what the cipher thus far might suggest, is wrong (puts things in a very very wrong location).

So the "C" note is strange, and I suspect the note after it is also incorrect. But if the "C" were really an "E", and the note immediately after it were a "F#octave", then we would get 75 31.943, which is EXTREMELY plausible in real life.

But.. are those two notes plausible musically?

Cheers

If you are in doubt about the validity of the notes, please load up the Windows software called "Transcribe". You can open the MP3 directly in the software. It performs a spectral analysis of the selected region of audio and graphs it against an on-screen MIDI keyboard. You can click on the individual keys on this keyboard and hear the MIDI note as you check it against the wave audio source.

I double checked the notes, but there's always the chance I was wrong.

I just triple checked, and I think that C is actually an E. Sorry about that.

Ahhh.. good. And the F# that follows it is actually F#(octave), right?

Thanks!

Correct, it's the higher of the two F#'s played in the melody. Didn't realize the octave counted as a position in a cypher when I first transcribed it (you didn't tell us that bit at first. ), so the only reason I noted that it was an octave at all was because it immediately followed another F#.

Canucks must have the best caches...around here they're more like, "go look under the slide at the park."

Well.. there are some very fun caches around here. This is Ottawa, Canada, home to more puzzle caches per square kilometre than probably anywhere else. Personally, I'd prefer to have a LOT more "normal" caches here to visit, but most locals only put out 3hour+ complex puzzle hunts these days, so that's what we're stuck with now. Many are fun, but most are just tedious. All are good exercise, at least.

Cheers!

Thanks Tony (and Bitt).

Here is the link for the Ionian Tusk of the Daywalker geocache itself.

Cheers

And that really stinks, too. The best cache I've done so far is a 5 stage cache that actually asked questions like "Who found the first Geocache?" Unfortunately there aren't many creative geocache depositors around this area. Bummer.

Well... find a spare few days and come and visit! We've got room here for anyone who'd like to drop by and go caching for a few days. Hundreds upon hundreds of caches in the area, at least half (or more) of which are of the non-vanilla varieties!

Cheers

Thanks for the offer but I don't see that happening anytime soon! My vacation consists of a trip to France this summer for 2 weeks (church mission trip) so it's doubtful that I'll have the time or the money. Maybe after the cincy meet this year I'll plan on taking a few extra days to enjoy some geocaching in that area.

I can't believe I was away for this one! I'd have loved to help out, but I trust you have it all resolved by now?

but you never refer to an 8th note or a 10th note. I've never heard of anyone referring to anything but a 9th and 11th above 7th.

[Useless Music Theory]
To be completely technical, this really depends on the terms you're using. If you are simply talking about "intervals" (the distance between two notes) then there's nothing wrong with "8th" or "10th", but (as you point out) this really isn't the information people are trying to get across.

When speaking about "chords", however, 8th and 10th make no sense because you'd just use the numbering from the first octave. The difference between a 2nd and a 9th chord is that a 9h implies that a 3rd 5th and 7th are also present in the chord (the key note being the 7th, as any chord implies the 3rd and 5th). An 11th also implies the 7th as well as the 9th preceding it (though it's not strictly necessary). A 13th is another chord I see sometimes, BTW.

Practically the way this works out is that if I see a 2nd chord (although to be completely technical, this isn't really a chord but a suspension), I’ll just play a regular chord with the 2nd added. If I see a ninth, then I’ll add the second, but also a seventh as it’s implied.
[/Useless Music Theory]
I don’t believe any of this relates to the task at hand, however. I just like to talk about music theory.

Right, but most of the time I see them it's as a Eadd9 or Esus2. The difference between those two chords is whether or not the 3rd exists, but they still always use the different terminology for the 2nd. I don't know why.

Right, but most of the time I see them it's as a Eadd9 or Esus2. The difference between those two chords is whether or not the 3rd exists, but they still always use the different terminology for the 2nd. I don't know why.

Well actually when it’s a Esus2, playing the 3rd is optional. Most of the times the reason you don’t play it on a guitar is because you don’t have enough strings. The same is true of an Esus4.

The reason for the change in terminology (“sus” vs” add”) is that by definition, chords are spelled in terms of thirds (1, 3, 5, 7, 9, 13, 15). A “standard” chord includes 1, 3, & 5, and then you start getting other notes in as you add the 7th. As I mentioned before, technically as you add in each note you also add in the thirds before it as well (so a 15th would have 1, 3, 5, 7, 9, & 13 as well), though they’re not always played. So “add” means to add onto the chord.

“Sus” means that it really isn’t part of the chord, but that it’s “suspended” from a previous chord. Or at least that’s how it started out. If you look back at Bach’s music you’ll see suspensions all over the place, but they’re never treated as part of the chord. They are held over from previous chords and resolved at some point into the new chord. A sus4 is generally resolved to the 3 that it is pulling toward. The sus2 has a less obvious resolution, since it is a whole step away from both the 1 and the 3.

As I said, suspensions were originally holdovers from previous chords, but in modern music we use these as simply part of the chords. If a guitarist or keyboardist is smart he or she will use this information to try and precede a “sus” chord with one that has the same note so that it really does feel like a suspension, but it’s no longer a real necessity.

So I hope that clears it up a bit. (And I think I’m pretty accurate about all of this, but it’s been awhile so I take no responsibility for any errors in my descriptions!)

That's good info I was unaware of. I needed to take more music theory classes in school than I did.

Agreed, that is very interesting. I always thought "Suspended" specifically meant that the third was suspended from the current chord and replaced with either the 2nd or the 4th. My fault for being a guitar player instead of a keyboardist.