‘Do, re, mi, fa’ NYT Mini Crossword clue answer and hints

Music is a complicated affair, but forget about instrumentalists. Let’s concentrate on the heartbeat of the music—the singer—as it helps us massively with the “Do, re, mi, fa, ___” clue in today’s NYT Mini Crossword puzzle.

‘Do, re, mi, fa’ NYT Mini Crossword clue (Aug. 23) hints

• Hint one: It has one vowel.
• Hint two: ___heim Cup.
• Hint three: Mexican beer.
• Hint four: Ends with “L.”

This does it for your clues to five down, so let’s run through the answer and its meaning.

‘Do, re, mi, fa’ answer and explainer

“SOL” is the answer to the clue as “Do, re, mi, fa” makes up Solfège—a system dealing with the increase and decrease of pitch.

The full scale is do, re, mi, fa, sol, la, and ti!

For my clues, the main one requiring an explainer is probably hint two. If you don’t know women’s sports, the Solheim Cup is the female equivalent of the Ryder Cup in Golf—a team-based competition in which Europe takes on the USA every two years.

All answers for NYT Aug. 23 Mini Crossword puzzle

Across

• 1A Good___, bad____ (classic routine) — COP
• 4A Pick up on, as a sound — HEAR
• 5A Pick up on, as a vibe — SENSE
• 6A Actress Ana of “Ugly Betty” — ORTIZ
• 7A Not as much — LESS

Down

• 5D Do, re, me, fa, ___… — SOL
• 1D Homophone of 5-Across — CENTS
• 2D Fertile area in a desert — OASIS
• 3D Biden’s title, informally — PREZ
• 4D Homophone of 4-Across — HERE

Clue difficulty of ‘Do, re, mi, fa’ explained

If you said I was tone-deaf due to the non-existent extent of my singing ability, I’d be hard-pressed to argue. However, I still know music and its principles—so I did know about the pitch scale. Remembering each note isn’t easy, though, and I think a four out of five rating is more than fair.

Best games like NYT Mini Crossword puzzle, explained

Make Friday even better with the LA Times or Washington Post word games. Or, if they don’t take your fancy (or you’ve completed them) try out Strands and Spelling Bee for a further challenge before the weekend!