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To: My Mods! (and the community)
Note: The following is a letter enclosing the details of what's going on. It's more for "story" and humor, but does have some information that you might want. To save you time for those who'd rather not read the letter (and hurt my feelings), here is the tl;dr:

  • The letter below does not contain any ciphers, steganography, or hidden messages.

  • The music below contains a riddle. Some basic music knowledge will be required (i.e. know how to read sheet music in treble clef).

  • The music contains all the information you need. The spots of red are "blood" and are purely aesthetic.

  • That's it.

Dear Puzzling SE,
Greetings! I'm back! Did you miss me? It's me, North, your favorite psychopathic tree!
After my humiliating defeat almost two years ago, I decided to take some time off for myself, thinking and plotting. Also being a tree. I was unable to post, because I lost Wi-Fi for a while. The service up here is terrible, trust me.
To mark my triumphant return, I figure I'd give you a little warm-up for our upcoming little game.
No moderators have been kidnapped... yet.
The music you see below contains a riddle. Yes, you'll need some background music knowledge, but what did you expect? That's the only thing I will tell you.
No clues nor hints have been hidden in this letter aside from what I'm telling you. No, seriously, everything's in the music, trust me. You're wasting your time by looking for clues here. Everything is within the music. Also, the spots of red aren't significant either. Just some blood. No biggie.
Love you all dearly,
North

enter image description here

Hint:

An ASCII converter table would come in handy. It's also in C major, not A minor.

Hint on the riddle:

The word is four letters long. Each line either reveals a letter or reveals a definition, but not both.

Additional hint:

You can try substituting "NOTHING" for "NAUGHT". There's a reference to degrees if you can catch it. Do you see it?

Update:

Errors within the music. It has been updated and fixed.

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  • $\begingroup$ Where's the YouTube video so we can hear what it sounds like :O $\endgroup$
    – Avi
    Jan 18, 2020 at 3:21
  • $\begingroup$ @Avi Haha! It sounds terrible, trust me. Everything’s visual. I wouldn’t expect you to listen and deduce anything ... yet, though that does give me some good ideas for the future. It’s too short to be worth uploading it online $\endgroup$
    – Prince North Læraðr
    Jan 18, 2020 at 3:30
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    $\begingroup$ "Also being a tree. I was unable to post, because I lost Wi-Fi for a while." - you missed out on a great opportunity for a "post" pun. $\endgroup$
    – Rand al'Thor
    Jan 18, 2020 at 12:33
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    $\begingroup$ @HTM the puzzle has been edited. $\endgroup$
    – CG.
    Jan 22, 2020 at 20:54
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    $\begingroup$ Someone do this, I forgot how to read sheet music years ago. I'm bad at riddles too, but those I can actually try. $\endgroup$
    – ThePuzzlingPlatypus
    Jan 25, 2020 at 21:29

2 Answers 2

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You

sing a NOTE

Interpreting the score:

Each bar is a word, and each group of 3 notes/rests is a letter. Each note/rest is a digit in base 8, with CDEFGAB mapping to 1-7 and a rest mapping to 0. A fermata represents the end of a line.

Doing this results in the following riddle:

START WITH ME
GO ON, HEAD SHAKING
THE THIRD TO SEE
IS LAST TO NOTHING
FOR WHAT DO I SING?

Explanation of the answer:

START WITH ME
Your name is North, so start with an N.
GO ON, HEAD SHAKING
Head shaking means NO so the next letter is an O.
THE THIRD TO SEE / IS LAST TO NOTHING
This is the degree reference, the third degree on a C/See major scale is E, which the riddle says is the last letter to nothing/naught, i.e. NOT.

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  • $\begingroup$ It appears that the two odd words are normal words with the replacement of one letter (the letter being shared between them) $\endgroup$
    – Brandon_J
    Jan 27, 2020 at 23:06
  • $\begingroup$ Actually those are just typos. it should be "HEAD" and "NOTHING" $\endgroup$
    – Prince North Læraðr
    Jan 27, 2020 at 23:31
  • $\begingroup$ I fixed some typos. Those were errors on my part, not yours. Sorry! $\endgroup$
    – Prince North Læraðr
    Jan 28, 2020 at 20:00
  • $\begingroup$ I understand the degree reference but I'm pretty stuck on the other lines :P $\endgroup$
    – Lawrence Pang
    Jan 30, 2020 at 15:01
  • $\begingroup$ edited with my answer @North $\endgroup$
    – Lawrence Pang
    Feb 3, 2020 at 15:06
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Following on from cpark's answer, here's what I found:

START WITH ME
The first letter ("start") of "ME" is M

GO ON, HEAD SHAKING
Dropping ("shaking" off) the first letter (the "head") of "GO ON" gives OON

THE THIRD TO SEE
IS LAST TO NOTHING
ZERO ("nothing"/naught) has the last letter O. As we can clearly see, MOON has third letter O.

FOR WHAT DO I SING?

You

sing for the MOON

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2
  • $\begingroup$ Think naught as more like nought... you're on the right track, but the answer for every single one is completely wrong. Each line adds a specific letter. I will tell you you that the O and the N are in the word. $\endgroup$
    – Prince North Læraðr
    Feb 2, 2020 at 0:12
  • $\begingroup$ Corrections: one of the O's are in the right place, technically. The other just doesn't belong. $\endgroup$
    – Prince North Læraðr
    Feb 2, 2020 at 0:19

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