Confused Carols

Listen to a scrambled musical score and restore the original song.

Also available with Hololive songs.

Last Updated - 4 December 2024

Added 13 new puzzles (2 easy, 7 medium, 4 hard).

Added two new instruments.

Also includes features and bug fixes from Mixed Music (new instrument, improved swing tempo algorithm, fixed bug in the tutorial).

How to Play

The song list contains short excerpts from traditional Christmas songs which are divided into 4-12 measures. When a puzzle is generated, the measures of the song will be randomly mixed up and changed (based on the difficulty level). To solve the puzzle, correct the music to restore the original song.

Click the Play button (or type p) to hear the song correctly. Click the Check button (or type c) to hear the current arrangement of measures. When it matches the original, the puzzle is solved and the song selection menu will be displayed.

To restore the song, click on any measure to select it. Clicking on it again will play that measure in isolation. While selected, you can make changes to correct the music:

• Click on a different measure to swap their positions.
• Click on the Order button (or type o), to change the order of the notes.
• Click on the Pitch button (or type i), to change the pitch of the notes.
• Click on the Length button (or type l), to change the duration of the notes.
• Click on the Key button (or type k), to change the key between major and minor.

(Only the options used in creation of the puzzle will be available.)

When you select a puzzle, song's difficulty level will set the possible puzzle elements automatically. Enabling Customize Puzzle Elements allow these can be changed to make the puzzle easier or harder. Puzzle elements can be Always applied, Never applied, or applied at Random. (Count of the Random elements will be chosen for the puzzle.)

For an additional challenge: Blind mode will hide the notes of each measure. Deaf mode will not allow listening to individual measures, only the complete piece. Memory mode will not allow listening to the original music, you must reconstruct it from memory (or find your own recording).

Acknowledgements

The concept is derived from a puzzle in The Lost Mind of Dr. Brain by Sierra On-Line.

Some techniques used for instrument synthesis are derived from Pluck and Sound on Sound's columns on synthesizers.