How to play the music word search
- Twelve music words are hidden across, down or diagonally, and any may run backwards.
- Drag from the first letter to the last, or tap both in turn.
- A correct find is banded in colour and struck off; wrong picks are ignored.
- Hint marks the first letter of a word you have not found.
- New game draws twelve fresh words from the 73.
Music word search strategy
The music list has more rare letters than most, which makes it one of the friendlier themes once you know where to look. The harder part is telling similar instrument names apart.
Rare letters first
JAZZ has a J and a double Z, a run the fill almost never produces. XYLOPHONE and SAXOPHONE hold the only Xs, BANJO has a J, and K turns up in KEY, KEYBOARD, UKULELE, SPEAKER, ROCK and FOLK. V is in VERSE, VIOLIN and VIOLA.
Tell the look-alikes apart
VIOLIN and VIOLA share their first four letters, and HARMONY and HARMONICA their first six, so read to the end before you drag. BASS sits inside BASSOON and KEY inside KEYBOARD; the generator never picks both, so a short word inside a longer one is not a separate find.
A word with no vowels
RHYTHM has no A, E, I, O or U, only a Y. In a grid of fill weighted towards vowels, a run of consonants like that stands out once you look for it. Doubles help too: the LL in CELLO, BALLAD and LULLABY, the SS and OO in BASSOON, the CC in ACCORDION. Each pair reads the same from both ends, so it also catches backwards words.
Words in the music word search
The music list has 73 words. Only KEY has three letters, and TAMBOURINE and MICROPHONE are the longest at ten. Four- and five-letter words make up more than half the list: SONG, TUNE, BEAT, NOTE, HARP, TUBA and DRUM, CHORD, SCALE, PIANO, VIOLA and FLUTE.
The orchestra is here almost in full: strings (VIOLIN, VIOLA, CELLO, HARP), woodwind (FLUTE, CLARINET, OBOE, BASSOON), brass (TRUMPET, TROMBONE, TUBA, HORN) and percussion (DRUM, CYMBAL, TAMBOURINE, TRIANGLE, XYLOPHONE). Beyond it sit GUITAR, BANJO, UKULELE, PIANO, ORGAN, ACCORDION and HARMONICA. The theory words, MELODY, HARMONY, RHYTHM, TEMPO, PITCH, TREBLE, CLEF and STAFF, sit beside the song words VERSE, CHORUS and LYRIC, and the people: SINGER, CONDUCTOR and COMPOSER.
Genres close the list: JAZZ, BLUES, ROCK, FOLK and OPERA, with the song types BALLAD, ANTHEM and LULLABY. UKULELE is one to spell carefully, with no double letter at all.
Stats, hints and printables
The timer pauses when the tab is hidden, and Music stats (played, won, win rate, best and average time) stay in this browser. The first two hints are free; once ads are enabled, more cost a short ad or a 30-second wait. Every grid has a code such as A7K3Q to replay or share, and the printable page makes music sheets.
Plays anywhere, no app, no account
The music grid plays the same on a phone, a tablet on a music stand or a desktop, with tap, drag or the keyboard. Tidy Puzzles runs entirely in your browser: there is no app to install, no account to create and no interstitial before you can play. After the first visit the game also works offline, because each puzzle is generated on your device from a seed. Every board can be played with the keyboard alone, on a phone or a desktop, and your stats and unfinished puzzles stay in this browser rather than on a server.