14
$\begingroup$

This puzzle is part of the Puzzling Stack Exchange Advent Calendar 2022. The accepted answer to this question will be awarded a bounty worth 50 reputation.

< Previous Door Next Door >

A Motley Crew of Carolers comes to your door and starts singing songs. Beholden by the beauty, you are suddenly stricken with synesthesia. Sensing a deeper meaning, you carefully transcribe the colorful notes.

enter image description here enter image description here enter image description here enter image description here enter image description here enter image description here enter image description here

What messages lie hidden in the music?

Improve this question
$\endgroup$
3
  • $\begingroup$ Colors should be accessible but let me know if you don't see six colors as well as black. $\endgroup$
    – caPNCApn
    Commented Dec 21, 2022 at 5:31
  • $\begingroup$ Did you use Musescore 4 :D? $\endgroup$
    – Stevo
    Commented Dec 21, 2022 at 8:06
  • $\begingroup$ @Stevo Yes. How could you tell? $\endgroup$
    – caPNCApn
    Commented Dec 22, 2022 at 4:44

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
12
+50
$\begingroup$

First, let's identify the tunes:

Jingle Bells
Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas
Here Comes Santa Claus
Rudolf The Red-Nosed Reindeer
Frosty The Snowman
Feliz Navidad
Happy Xmas (War Is Over)

Now, there's something not quite right about those scores:

There's no time signature on any of them, and the bars aren't consistent lengths.
In fact, it looks like there is one bar per word of the song title, with one note per letter in each bar.

Extracting the corresponding letter for each note and sorting by colour gives us:
Light blue: JOLENUOYXE
Yellow: NEEFRIHHCTEONWHA
Dark Blue: ELVECESOENAV
Green: BATOULNENA
Pink: SARTMCHRERMYSI
Purple: FELIZNAVIDAD

Finally:

Those are all anagrams of Merry Christmas in different languages:
Light blue: Joyeux Noel (French)
Yellow: Frohe Weihnachten (German)
Dark Blue: Vesele Vanoce (Czech)
Green: Buon Natale (Italian)
Pink: Merry Christmas (English)
Purple: Feliz Navidad (Spanish)

Improve this answer
$\endgroup$

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged or ask your own question.