Decoding Cryptograms in Musical Compositions

English Musical Cryptogram.

From Bach to Batman.

There’s a curious relationship between music and puzzles; it turns out that musical notes can convey messages as well as just beautiful sounds. A musical cryptogram is a series of musical notes that have a logical relationship with the alphabet. By connecting each alphabet letter with a single musical note, it becomes more memorable to the human ear.

In another post, “Cipher and Cryptogram: What is the Difference?” I touched briefly upon how secret messages have been encrypted or hidden in musical compositions for ages. There are examples of musical cryptograms in everyday life. Make a phone call; notice the tones assigned to each number you punch in. Your best friend’s phone number can be a musical cryptogram!

By assigning a musical note to each letter of the alphabet, you can write a message using music notes. Of course, your “spelling” can affect the music composition. Obviously, the more complex the message, the more it interferes with the flow of the piece. To the untrained ear, this wouldn’t necessarily be evident, but to a trained ear, or at least a person experienced in reading music, it would be obvious that something was amiss. The objective is to create a distinctive melodic cryptogram. Any melodic note comprises of seven fundamental keys: C D E F G A and B.

In the film, “Batman Begins,” Bruce Wayne uses a musical cryptogram to open the secret door to the Batcave.

If you’ve ever seen the film “Batman Begins,” there’s a scene where Bruce Wayne plays a short melody on his office piano. It acts like a key and opens a secret door in his bookshelf, and in turn opens the doors to an elevator leading down to the Batcave. That’s just one example of a musical cryptogram. The entrance to the Batcave is opened by playing three two-note chords on the piano, starting three octaves above middle C: C#-E♭, D♭-D# up an octave, and F#-G#. That means Bruce Wayne’s musical cryptogram is a 6-letter word. Hmm—I wonder what word it spells? B-A-T-M-A-N.

But it's not just in fiction. Classical composers have encoded secret messages in their music and have done so for centuries. It’s true!

Johann Sebastian Bach was the first major composer to create a musical cryptogram for creative purposes. Bach didn't need to rely on a substitution cipher though. He took advantage of the fact that German musical scales had eight notes labeled A-H and used those notes to spell his name in a song. Thus "B-A-C-H" became a four-note melody for his composition.

Johann Sebastian Bach, was one of the first composers to cipher his name B-A-C-H (B-flat, A, C, B-natural) into his music. Using the BACH motif.

Johannes Brahms put the name of a young woman he had fallen in love with, Agathe von Siebold, into one of his musical compositions. Brahms incorporated the notes A-G-A-H-E in the first movement of his 1868 piece “String Sextet No. 2 in G major” to profess his love toward von Siebold. How romantic! 

Although Brahms later broke off their engagement to focus on his musical career, he felt that by encoding von Siebold’s name into one of his musical works he was honoring Agathe as well as giving himself closure on a relationship that would never be. Not sure Agathe felt the same way!

Johannes Brahms coded the first name of his lover, Agathe von Siebold, into a musical composition. He used music notes, A-G-A-D-H-E (employing “D note” to substitute letter “T” and in German “H” is the note “B”).

You can decode musical cryptograms in the Tempo’s Alphabet puzzle “Accident-al’s!”. Players learn how to decode them using Tempo’s special language device that his speech therapist, Margaret Mallow, created for him.

As you can see in the video below, each alphabet letter replaces a music note. The English word “Sorry!” composes not only to spell Tempo’s spoken word, but also sounds like a melody. See if you can decode his special musical messages! 

But first, you must pass Suit 1 before you can advance to play this puzzle in Suit 2.  

In the Tempo’s Alphabet puzzle “Accident-al’s!” the players’ objective is to decode Tempo’s musical cryptograms.

It takes both a musical flair and a puzzler’s mind to create a musical cryptogram. 

Perhaps, the side effect of decoding cryptograms in musical compositions, is that listening to and identifying them, could make you a master puzzle maker (like Moi) in the future. Ahem— maybe.

Well, that’s all I have for you.

Bye, for now!