Half of every cryptic clue is a description of what you need to write in the grid. Because crossword setters are kindly folk, the other half is a little recipe of the letters in the same word, and that recipe often has some abbreviations in it.
What abbreviations? Happily, these are things you’ve seen going about your non-crosswording business. The word “cold” might remind of you of a C from a tap; “Spain” should make you think of an E on the back of a car.
What else? Well, royal-wedding cellist Sheku Kanneh-Mason quite rightly worries that today’s children are missing out on a music education; crossword setters, equally rightly, presume that music is part of life and that solvers will know a handful of its abbreviations.
Abbreviations such as ... P. Even if you’ve missed out on sheet music, as a solver, you associate the word “piano” with P. This is “piano” as in “play this bit quietly”, rather than the instrument – but setters concoct their clues so that they seem at first to be about the instrument. So when Shed writes ...
25ac Promise to put piano on shelf (6)
... this is not a piece of staggeringly ill-advised storage advice. Instead we replace “piano” with P and “shelf” with another word for “shelf” (LEDGE) and get a word for “promise”: PLEDGE.
The same goes for “quietly”; here’s Vulcan …
1d Insect lived quietly (4)
… where you replace “lived” with WAS and “quietly” with P for an insect: a WASP.
What about “loudly”? Good question; now you’re thinking like a champion solver. Here’s Rufus:
12ac An opinion to contradict loudly (6)
Here “contradict” gives us BELIE and “loudly” an F (forte, if you insist on getting technical), so the opinion is a BELIEF. Less often, in music and in puzzles, you might see “very quietly” (PP), or “very loudly” (FF).
Now let’s look at a controversial device, or at least one that Guardian solvers have said they find frustrating. “Note” in a clue often indicates a single letter in an answer; since that letter could be A, B, C, D, E, F or G, that keeps the suspense going a little too long for some. Still, it’s out there in the puzzles, so you need it in your armoury – and you also need to know that, as in this clue from Brummie …
12ac Political supporter’s note secured in advance (6)
… there are another seven possibilities! Here you’re taking COME (“advance”) and inserting (here’s our guide) the note MI to end up with COMMIE, because “note” can also be MI, as well as DO, RE, FA, SOL and TI. Oh, and “note” can also be the abbreviation N, from outside the world of music. What I’m saying is: be deeply wary of “note”.
Two more before you return to your grids. Lists of a composer’s achievements call each work an “opus”, abbreviated to OP, and so “work”, as in this clue from Tramp …
9ac Storyteller withdrawing main work (5)
… is OP, the “main” is the SEA (backwards because of “withdrawing”) – and the storyteller is AESOP.
Finally, “bass” has a clear enough meaning when you know you’re talking about music, and its abbreviation is easy enough to guess, but the clue might use “bass” in a way that makes you think of an ale, or in this clue from Puck, something in the sea:
9d Bass has warning about fish in opera (6,7)
Here, in fact, the fish is a HERRING, which you mix with ALERT (“warning”) and B (yes, that’s “bass”) for Benjamin Britten’s ALBERT HERRING.
Beginners: any questions? And seasoned solvers, any favourite musical clues, or other things to look out for?
