Solutions
Solutions listed by the category in the book index.
Alphabet Soup Solutions
How to reveal the solutions
Click a puzzle title below to reveal its answer.
Almost apologetic lost letters
- Missing letters are T-I-E.
Thus making the words SORTIE, TIERCE & PITIED
Bit of an instrument
- The missing 3 letters are ORG. Thus making the words corgis, forget, morgue.
Emptying his vowels
Oboe
Quint
Octave
Bordon
Tierce
Ripieno
Posaune
Lieblich
Tibia
Geigen
Ophicleide
Gamba
Openwood
Fugara
Subbass
Keraulophone
Salicional
Fourniture
Aeoline
Amorosa
Letterbox drops
- No. 1: Some of the songs making the rounds now will be popular when Bach, Beethoven and Wagner are forgotten - but not before. Louis Sobel, (New York newspaper columnist c.1950)
- No. 2: The optimist believes that good always, eventually, comes from bad things that happen. The 'every cloud has a silver lining philosophy'. Clearly, optimists have never encountered a pipe organ enjoying a full-throated cipher. Anon
Tuneful lost letters
- The missing 3 letters are AIR. Thus making the words airily, lairds, paired
Crossword Solutions
Mysteriously musical
On best of terms
Organically themed
Cryptically crossing again
Sudoku Solutions
Keys to boardom - 10
Musical mish-mash - 31
Pleasant overtones - 40
Breathing apparatus - 46
Spot the difference
Click on the thumbnails to reveal the solution
Alien found in Bath
Pipes in Pieces
Changing consoles
Excluded in Exeter
Mischievous cherubs
Mixed up performers
When Henry got bored
Logic problem solutions
How to reveal the solutions
Click a puzzle title below to reveal its answer.
Monastery Murder
- The pipe length numbers indicate which letter points to the murderer’s name. So a Gemshorn 4 indicates the letter ‘s’ as being the 4th letter along; Plein jeu IV indicates the letter ‘i’ as being the IVth letter along and so on. Brother Cedric was quick enough to pull out the stops to spell “Sister Maria” before his assailant attacked him.
Where the Wild Things Are
- Ben Handle. 1st international touring organist
- Sam Britain, 2nd, composer
- Joe Vargner, 3rd, Professor of music
- Dan Shopan, 4th, music publisher
- Richard Hiden, 5th piano teacher
Squabbling Players
Charlie Scrape, trumpeter, 1st, with GLISS
Chris Bash, cellist, 2nd, with LARGO
Bobby Humm, violinist, 3rd, with CLEF
Glenn Honk, flautist, 4th, with TEMPO
Country cacophony
- 1st Soloist Croon played the Trio Sonata in St Languid
- 2nd Soloist Punch played the Fugue in St Serenata
- 3rd Soloist Bash played the Prelude in St Dozy
- 4th Soloist Thump played the Noise in St Snore
- 5th Soloist Wallop played the Toccata in St Yorn
Wedding Woes
- Grandpa wore the pink carnation and stole the candlesticks
- Aunty Liv wore the red rose and hit the vicar
- Dork wore the white rose and spilled wine on the gown
- Bozo wore the apricot carnation and broke the video camera
- Sharlene wore the yellow rose and kissed the organist
Key to getting organised
- Herr Style went to St Boar at noon by car
- Herr Brayned went to Bingo at 1pm by ferry
- Dexter met Herr Kutt at 2pm in Kobblerz, who had gone there by bike as usual
- Frau Zee went to Noosheim at 3pm by train
Pass the parcel
- Reverend Old with the grey roof, got the cheese; left out the cake
- Mr & Mrs Chips with the brown roof, got the cake; left out the mince pies
- Family Smith with the red roof, got the pies; left out the wine
- Student Cownta, with the green roof, got the wine; left out the book
- Mr Robinson with the blue roof, got the book; left out the socks
- Miss Prints with the black roof, got the socks; left out the video
* The final piece of the jigsaw, whether the surname Old was the vicar or the widow, can be put in place if you think that the vicar would have had Rev. before her or his name. Miss Prints, however, was a female. She could have been married at some stage, then widowed and returned to her maiden name, hence the Miss.
A noisy noise annoys
- The cellphone user in a coat disrupted the Water Music
- The person wearing boots coughed during the piano concerto
- The noisy child wearing a beret shattered the peace of Nimrod
- The person wearing jeans used a flash camera and ruined the organ concerto
Getting testy
- room 1 Frenchman, stage II Faking Recitals from 9am to noon
- room 2 Italian, stage III Bluff Your Way Through Opera, from 10am to 1pm
- room 3 German, stage II Lift Musak from 8am to 11am
- room 4 Englishman, stage I Grovelling for Gigs from 9am to noon
- room 5 Swiss, stage 1 Finding Middle C, from 10am to 1pm
Choir conga
1. Max Bawdon
2. César McStewer
3. César Tibbier
4. Max Phloot
5. Johann Tibbier
6. Nadia Phloot
7. Nadia Bawdon
8. Johann McStewer
9. César Phloot
10. Johann Bawdon
11. Max McStewer
12. Nadia Tibbier
13. Nadia McStewer
14. Max Tibbier
15. Johann Phloot
16. César Bawdon
Letter ladder solutions
How to reveal the solutions
Click a puzzle title below to reveal its answer.
Fine tuning a singer
- TENOR - INTER - THEIR - ETHIC - PITCH
From little to large
- FLUTE - FETAL - AFTER - GREAT - ANGER - ORGAN
Recomposing
- LISZT - SPLIT - STRIP - SPIRE - PRIDE - DUPRE
Rossini crescendo
- PIANO - APRON - PRONE - TENOR - FORTE
Plain Difficult solutions
How to reveal the solutions
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Organ crawl
- Bunyan Meeting Free Church, Bedford
- Blackburn Cathedral
- Brecon Cathedral
- Chester Cathedral
- Waterford, Ireland
- Coventry Cathedral
- Dunblane Cathedral
- Exeter Cathedral
- All Saints, Hastings
- Huddersfield Town Hall
- Hull, Minster
- Rochdale Town Hall
- Upper Norwood
- St Bartholomew, Armley
- Leicester Cathedral
- Lincoln Cathedral
- St Laurence, Ludlow
- National Concert Hall, Dublin
- Norwich Cathedral
- Ely Cathedral
- St Stephen, Old Radnor
- Ripon Cathedral
- Salisbury Cathedral
- Sidmouth Parish Church
- St Mary Redcliffe, Bristol
- St Giles Cathedral, Edinburgh
- Temple Church, London
- St Michael, Tenbury
- Tewkesbury Abbey
- Truro Cathedral
Page turner to the rescue
How to recreate Sepulcher’s chopped-up music solution:
Assume the 2 pages are glued back-to-back. Showing SIDE A
- Trim any excess white space off both of the short ends of the paper.
- Score the glued piece down the fold lines A, B, C to make it easier for folding.
- Cut along the 3 red lines, then fold back the loose piece of E and F underneath so that the reverse side of F lies against the reverse of column 4.
- Continue to bring the flap around section and fold E2 so it lies on top of section 4 G.
- Fold the entire column 1 underneath so its reverse lies against the reverse side of column 2.
- Now turn column 2 (along with the folded column 1) once more so it sits against the reverse of column 3.
- Rejoin the loose right-hand edge of column 4 to the D1 square (it will make the original complete bar).
- Gently fold in and out to ease the movement of sections. There should be 4 complete sides the last of which may be more difficult to discover than the rest.
- Not recommended for actual performance. Unless you’re desperate or mad.
Prithee, what ails this piece of musik?
- The fourth stave was swapped in error with the third from the bottom, making no musical sense.
Synchronised seating
If the ushers seat the people correctly, the view from above will look like this and spell out the name of one of music's most famous composers.
Ring the changes solutions
How to reveal the solutions
Click a puzzle title below to reveal its answer.
Group
- chorus - chords - chores
A work
- opus - opts - oats - cats
Vivacity
- brio - brim - grim
Arrangement
- score - scorn - acorn - adorn
Lesser
- minor - miner - mixer
Procession
- march - match - watch
Tricky Passages
How to reveal the solutions
Click a puzzle title below to reveal its answer.
Imaginary or inventive
The 5 made-up names:
Cross stroker
Thumpink
Orkan
Towser
Beck
Keeping it in the family
There are only 4 people in the choir; a sister and a brother; the sister had a daughter and the brother had a son.
Shuffling choristers
Only three men need to move. Hans goes down in front of the row of four, then one from each end of that row moves up to either side of the two men at the top; thus turning the V-shape upside down.
The know-all new choirmaster
Pat, Jan, Adrian and Alex were all men (in this case singing bass), and Alice was either a soprano or alto, so she should have been sitting in one of the women’s sections.
What's in a name?
El órgano (Spanish)
Orgle (Slovenian)
Varhany (Czech)
Orgue (French)
Fifphon (Doesn’t exist)
Organy (Polish)
Pyporrel (Afrikaans)
Orgulje sa cijevima (Croatian)
Pipa orgeno (Esperanto)
‘Okana (Hawaiian)
Orgă (Romanian)
Urut (Finnish)
Organ pipa (Indonesian)
O Órgão (Portuguese)
Puywanku (Quechua)
Orgona (Hungarian)
Orgulje (Bosnian)
Vargonai (Lithuanian)
Pijporgel (Dutch)
Organ bibell (Welsh)
Uergel (Luxembourgish)
Orgel (German)
Ōkena (Māori)
Oprah (Bulgarian)
Org (Turkish)
A-mazing tuner
Click maze image below to enlarge
Drinks delivery dilemma
Click image below to enlarge
Word Search solutions
At an orchestral concert
Organs and their music
Where are the composers?
Errata
(correcting the errors made entirely by our wretched cat proof-reading team. I had nothing to do with it.)
- Squabbling Players:
Page 11, second sentence of introduction. The word oboist should be changed to flautist. (the grid has been updated) - Letter ladders:
"Fine tuning a Singer" (p. 9) and "Rossini Crescendo" (p. 31) : there should be 3 steps to change plus the 2 steps already given, one at the beginning and one at the end.
"From Little to Large" (p.19) and "Recomposing" (p.21) : there should be 4 steps to change plus the 2 steps given, one at the beginning and one at the end.