One of my weekly habits is to solve the Matt Gaffney Weekly Crossword Contest. Gaffney’s crossword is solved like a normal puzzle, but always a contains a hidden meta-puzzle, with a single often cryptic clue. You must solve the meta to enter the contest. [Poke around his website to see examples of past puzzles with their solutions!]
Gaffney is great at crafting these puzzles week after week, and I love the mental challenge he gives me each time. But one of the best moments is the click you get when pieces of the puzzle fall into place, and you understand what you need to do to solve the puzzle. In a well-designed Gaffney puzzle, there are no false clues, no elements that should be part of the puzzle but aren’t, and every piece goes together perfectly like a crafted timepiece. When you are staring at a puzzle wondering what it means and suddenly these elements come together, the click is a thing a joy.
It’s the same with a difficult piece of music. If the music is well-crafted, then it is work the effort needed to get it off the page. And there is always a moment when the hard work pays off and you feel the click of the music coming alive. It requires craft as well as creativity to achieve this click, and when it happens, it’s a sure sign of a good piece.