MECC May Weekend Battle '25 - Walkthrough by Helen Dupree - Bit of Music (V)

Join Helen Dupree, MECC friend, Traffic Engineering Analyst and Excel Esports Player as she guides you through the Julien Lacaze's Bit of Music Case from the 2025 MECC May Weekend Battle (Varsity Level). This comprehensive tutorial is perfect for students looking to enhance their Excel skills and confidently tackle challenging cases.

00:00 Intro music
00:12 Case setup – MIDI message anatomy & function list (BIN2DEC, TEXTSPLIT, XLOOKUP…)

01:10 Level 1 | Channel nibble → decimal with BIN2DEC
02:00 Level 2 | Split note-on message, add the three bytes (TEXTSPLIT + INT)
02:19 Level 3 | Identify instrument via channel lookup (named tables + XLOOKUP)
03:57 Level 4 | Drum logic: channel 10 needs key-to-drum lookup
06:44 Level 5 | Average velocity of note-on messages (FILTER + AVERAGEIFS)
08:58 Level 6 | Hex messages – which note is played most often (WRAPROWS + COUNTIF)
12:26 Level 7 | Find the instrument never addressed (split hex, build frequency table)

16:44 Bonus section intro
16:54 B1 – Count of “1” bits in all Level 1 messages (custom COUNTCH λ-function)
18:51 B2 – Which hex letter appears exactly 22 times in Level 3 answers
20:00 B3 – (zeros – ones)/2 rule → letter occurring that many times in Level 4
22:49 B4 – Sum of all velocity values in Level 4 (excluding example)
23:53 B5 – Sum of status-byte values in Level 7 after hex→binary conversion

26:39 Wrap-up – data-table trick, lambdas, speed tips
27:10 Outro music