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For a puzzle I am trying to solve, I have to find a certain artist which should be derived from a piece of 'music'.

The only thing I am given is this image: The notes A5, D5, E4, C5, C4, G4, G5, 8th rest, D4, B4, D4, G5, G4, half rest

The other puzzles were all code related, for example transforming pictures of croissants and dogs into binary, then converting the binary to ASCII. Another puzzle was taking licence plates, looking up which brand they belonged to and then taking all the first letters of these brands to form a new brand.

I therefore have the feeling that it is not simply playing the music to find the artist (I also already did try that). But probably some way of decoding music. I am not even sure if you actually have to be really good at reading notes, but since I am not so myself, maybe someone who is could have a better insight then me.

Thanks in advance if you are able to help me any further :)

EDIT: The 120 bpm is not orignally from the puzzle, that is something which was added by me when I typed over the notes in a programm to hear what it would sound like.

EDIT: The original picture (5646516514564.png): enter image description here

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  • $\begingroup$ When you converted the notes, did you make sure that the stem of the notes goes the same way as in the original? I'm also curious how you placed the rests vertically. $\endgroup$
    – M Oehm
    Commented Jan 28, 2019 at 10:05
  • $\begingroup$ @MOehm The OP says they were just given the image, no? $\endgroup$
    – Jafe
    Commented Jan 28, 2019 at 10:08
  • $\begingroup$ @jafe: Yes, but the addendum says that the ♩ = 120 was added later, so are we really looking at the original image? $\endgroup$
    – M Oehm
    Commented Jan 28, 2019 at 10:10
  • $\begingroup$ @MOehm Oh, right. I missed that. $\endgroup$
    – Jafe
    Commented Jan 28, 2019 at 10:11
  • $\begingroup$ @MOehm what do you mean by "rests vertically"? these are normal quarter and eighth rests $\endgroup$
    – Flying_whale
    Commented Jan 28, 2019 at 10:13

2 Answers 2

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The artist is:

Michael Bublé

The notes ...

... are not real music, of course. It's especially strange that the rests have a pitch; the rest symbols are usually placed in the centre of the staves.

If we encode the low C (the 5th note) as one, the low D as two and so on up to the high A, which is thirteen, we get:

    13, 9, 3, 8, 1, 5, 12, (12), 2, 7, 2, 12, 5, (5)

The numbers in brackets are the rests, although it's not quite clear where to put them exactly, as they have no spatial anchor like the notes' heads. Converting that to ASCII yields:

    MICHAEL (L)BGBLE(E)

The first part looks good. We probably need a means to "shift" the letters to the second part of the alphabet. The obvious mechanism is to use the length of the notes. All notes except the second one after the bar are eighth notes. The single quarter note is a U. (Except that it isn't: The second half of the alphabet starts with N, and that would mean the quarter note sits on T. Perhaps the querter note means to add 14, brcause 13 is considered unlucky.)

The rests are just space; they have the required length to fill the 4/4 bars.

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    $\begingroup$ Maybe this? The quarter note would be the only letter that needs special treatment... $\endgroup$
    – Jafe
    Commented Jan 28, 2019 at 10:31
  • $\begingroup$ Yes, I just found it out. Seems that the original's unusually positioned rests threw me off track. $\endgroup$
    – M Oehm
    Commented Jan 28, 2019 at 10:32
  • $\begingroup$ @MOehm sorry for the confusion of not posting the original, but thanks for the help! So how exactly are you enumerating the notes, what is the base number? $\endgroup$
    – Marijn van der Steen
    Commented Jan 28, 2019 at 10:34
  • $\begingroup$ Yes, the rests in the original look more conventional. ´:)` The enumeration just means to give the notes numerical values, where the low C is 1. In other words, you don't call the notes C, D, E, ... but 1, 2, 3, ... and you don't wrap over after one octave. $\endgroup$
    – M Oehm
    Commented Jan 28, 2019 at 10:52
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didn't look any further, but if this could help

notes are la re mi do do sol sol re si re sol sol or A D E C C G G D B D G G depending on the standard.
the eighth rest could be to mark the separation between artist's surname/name

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