Les Paul Mystery Cache
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Ver. 2 on 2013-03-17. A minor change in the final co-ordinates. The solution will not give a precise location anymore! Use the hint and the spoiler photo.
[FIN] Suomenkielinen lyhennelmä.
[SWE] Sammandrag på svenska.
Les Paul
A great guitarist and pioneer in solid body electric guitar construction, Les Paul (Lester Polsfuss), passed away in August 2009 at age of 94. He was born in 1915 in Wisconsin, USA. He also invented several substantial recording techniques: Overdubbing, multitracking, tape delay, phasing effect etc.
This mystery is about guitar chords. (If music is not your thing, please read the noncrypted hint at the end - the amazing one.) The basic idea is about the same as in Guitar Chords GC1G8W3 by JJBX. Only some simple math has been added. On the other hand, this time the chords are wilder. They're not simple majors or minors and the root note, i.e. the name note, or the 5th note or some other note might even be missing totally. (This is not unusual in blues and jazz, while in heavy rock the root and the 5th are indeed the only needed notes to build up those testosteroneous power chords.) And if the root note is included in the chord, it is not necessarily the lowest one.
The guitar in the following pictures is of course a Gibson Les Paul, the best known signature model guitar in history. It has been in production since 1952 and the story goes on. Among other instruments also Gibson Les Paul guitars are played regularly in the house beside the final cache.
Latitude chords
1) Recognize the chords in the fingering pictures. There are three chord name alternatives for each fingering pattern. Pickup the codes AB, BC and CD of the correct chords to get a six digit number ABCDEF.
2) Add 169856 to this number.
3) Divide the sum to three parts, two digits in each.
4) Add the two digits together in each part to get three sums.
5) If the sum happens to have two digits, ignore the first digit.
Now you have three digits a, b and c. The latitude of the cache is N 63° 05.abc'.
Example: Let's suppose you're pretty sure that the chords are D6-5, F#7sus4 and Am7. The corresponding codes for these chords are 17, 50 and 91.
1) AB CD EF = 17 50 91
2) 175091 + 169856 = 344947
3) 34 49 47
4) 3+4 = 7, 4+9 = 13 and 4+7 = 11.
5) Taking only the least significant digits we get a=7, b=3 and c=1.
Longitude chords
Three chords are given: Am7, F#+5 and B+9. You have to find a matching fingering pattern from three alternatives and pick up the correct codes AB, BC and CD to get another six digit number ABCDEF.
Then perform just the same operations with the number ABCDEF as with the latitude, but instead of adding 169856, do add 260611. You will get three digits d, e and f. The longitude of the cache is E 021° 3e.def'.
All the chords above appear in this mp3 sample, but mixed with lot of other chords.
Here's a zipped spoiler photo. Password is a four digit number abde.
An amazing hint:
The given difficulty level D3 is some kind of average value to solve this mystery. The actual D-level depends on your knowledge in guitar playing and music theory. This might be a D5 for most guitar players knowing their major and minor chords and perhaps even seventh chords. For an old-time amateur guitar player D3 is a good estimate, but for any open-minded and experimenting improviser, who doesn't know anything about guitar playing or chords, the difficulty level is about 1.5.
Additional Hints
(Decrypt)
Vs guvf srryf yvxr n Q5, sbetrg thvgnef naq guebj n pbva.
Pnpur: Iregvpny pnoyr pbire ba gur jnyy. (Arj ybpngvba; Gur pb-beqvangrf ner abg cerpvfr nalzber.)