by Guy Jacobson, Greg Pliska, and Matto Mildenberger
with vocals by Isis Jacobson
Answer: PLAINCHANTS
Problem: Pi Day Town/​Bloomsday Town

The full score to the song is available, as is an annotated score showing the note sequence played by each instrument.

Each line of the song (except the last) contains a word that is the surname of a famous instrumentalist, shown in bold:

At dawn, a dairy cow begins to mutter.
The farmer puts his hand upon her udder.
A finch begins to sing a merry song.
The miller, with his flour, hums along.
By evening, Galway Bay becomes much darker.
The contrast with the day could not be starker.
A crescent moon is rising o’er the bay
As furtive lovers deal with close of day:
Two figures bound by bonds of love are there
Embracing by the fountain in the square.
They’re clad in silken shirts and faded jeans;
Their names will tell you what this ditty means!

The last line tells solvers that names are somehow important to the solution of the puzzle.

Given Name Surname Instrument
ANNE-SOPHIE MUTTER Violin
ART FARMER Trumpet
CATRIN FINCH Harp
GLENN MILLER Trombone
JAMES GALWAY Flute
JANOS STARKER Cello
KEITH MOON Drums
KIM DEAL Bass
MARGARET BONDS Piano
PETE FOUNTAIN Clarinet
SUSI JEANS Organ

In the instrumental sections of the music, the instruments enter in a fixed order, building until all are playing together. Each instrument plays the same musical figure repeatedly, and the figure for a given instrument contains a fixed number of notes. If we order the musicians by their entrance order and use the number of notes in the figure that they play as an index into their given names, we extract the solution to the puzzle, which is PLAINCHANTS.

Entrance Order Letter # of Notes Given Name Surname Instrument
1 P 1 PETE FOUNTAIN Clarinet
2 L 2 GLENN MILLER Trombone
3 A 1 ART FARMER Trumpet
4 I 2 KIM DEAL Bass
5 N 3 ANNE-SOPHIE MUTTER Violin
6 C 1 CATRIN FINCH Harp
7 H 5 KEITH MOON Drums
8 A 2 JAMES GALWAY Flute
9 N 3 JANOS STARKER Cello
10 T 8 MARGARET BONDS Piano
11 S 3 SUSI JEANS Organ