Unhealthy trope with gibberish title: Songs In The Key Of Lock

Guess The Trope, anyone? Not only do I have no idea what the name means, I'm having trouble even parsing it. "The key of lock" is not a proper term, and rather than "songs in the key of C" the wording people actually use is "songs in C-major". Apparently this is a Snow Clone of "Songs in the Key of Life", an album released thirty-five years ago, that has zero relationship to the trope.

Also, this is not a healthy trope at all: it gets 36 wicks, 22 inbounds. Unsurprisingly, it's also not an established term, getting about a dozen google hits total.

Methinks it's time for a rename.

It's not a very common trope which is why it has such a low wik count. It's songs being used as a lock. It's pretty much Exactly What It Says on the Tin.

edited 7th Sep '11 5:35:41 PM by shimaspawn

More like "Music That Opens Something"; many of the examples don't involve keys or songs (in that a four-note sequence is really not a song).

There's no minimum length on songs to my knowledge. And the song is the key to unlocking whatever is opened. So yes, it's always key and lock. If it's not locked then it's not this trope.

It's not just about music opening something. It doesn't even have to actually open the object as long as it unlocks it.

@shimaspawn

Actually, this is a fairly common trope in video games, at least. It's definitely one of the Stock Puzzles in the Adventure Game genre (and I see that index agrees with me). I would joke occasionally to my (former) roommate with perfect pitch that I kept him around just to solve musical puzzles for me.

And the example list looks pretty long too; looks like at least a round of cross-wicking is in order. (In fact, I can think of a video game to add it to now that I know about it.)

I feel like the bizarre title might actually well be more of the problem here. Maybe just something like Musical Lock?

edited 7th Sep '11 5:54:34 PM by Jeysie

Support a re-name. Musical Lock And Key?

Musical Lock implies that something is locked with music. Not that it's unlocked with music. I'd suggest Musical Key but the issues with that are obvious.

Musical Lock And Key is better, but not great.

Musical Unlock(ing)?

Or maybe Musical Lockpicking, if we want to be cutesy.

Musical Lockpicking isn't bad.

Lockpicking implies opening a lock in a way other than what it was designed to be opened. Presumably most of these examples were designed to be openened with music.

My vote for Musical Lock And Key, as it covers the most options.

I like Musical Lock And Key.

Just to throw some alternatives out - Sonic Lock; Melodical Lock And Key; Unlocked By Sound.

A lot of the time this trope involves the main character trying to guess the correct tune somehow to open a door they're not supposed to, so it is still lockpicking in a sense. (And Musical Cracking/Hacking just sounds... odd.)

Still, Musical Lock And Key is nicely to the point, if a little bland.

edited 7th Sep '11 6:21:34 PM by Jeysie

I guessed it immediately. It may not be a -widespread- trope, but it's been used in several very prominent series: Myst and The Legend Of Zelda both have used it multiple times. In general, videogames seem to like this one.

By the way, it's not a 'snowclone', really. The pun on 'key' is pretty evident, since it relates music to security: Song->Key->Lock. I don't think it's a huge leap of logic to look at that and think 'music is used to unlock something'.

For me it's less that the trope is impossible to figure out once you see it and more that it's hard to think of to find it in the first place. If I was searching for a musical lock puzzle trope, I really wouldn't think of this name.

Just because you can figure it out doesn't mean it's not a Snow Clone. It's pretty clearly a Snow Clone from that old song title, with the words replaced to something related to the trope.

Technically this title is a snowclone, however it's not of the bad ones. It's pretty clear, it's witty, it uses adequate words to scope the event that it's referring to, and it's Exactly What It Says on the Tin.

I'd welcome searchable redirects if people want — in particular, Musical Unlocking or something similar — but I don't see the need for a rename. The more considering that for some reason, when a trope is renamed, all the internal wicks are substituted for the new name, thus losing the interesting one from TV Tropes usage, but I digress.

How about Songs In The Key Of Open? Custom Display it as "Songs In The Key Of "Open"."

edited 8th Sep '11 12:45:04 PM by Madrugada

Opening isn't required by the trope. If something is unlocked, but doesn't open and has to be opened manually, it's still this trope. The trope does requires unlocking though.

To be fair, Madrugada's suggestion is also more immediately understandable compared to the current one. You sing the song and that does something that, in the very least, enables opening the door/whatever. That you still have to eg.: push the door open because it's too heavy is not a limitant for the trope.

That's why I suggested the custom display.

<winces as she types> Open Sings a Key. Horrible, horrible play on "open sesame". </wincing> Yup, you can all kick me now.

Key Of C Sa Me?

You cannot hope to beat Morgan Wick in a wince-off. He is simply the best there is.

There is now a single proposition rename crowner for this trope here.

Musical Unlocking is also now a redirect.

The name doesn't seem that bad to me. The double-meaning seems fairly obvious and mildly amusing, and, as Shima said, the trope itself is not that common, so I'm not convinced about underuse. I would support redirect farming if this doesn't get renamed, though.

Redirect farming is what we need. I haven't seen any missue, so redirects can help with the searchablity.