[rtpg]

well a beginner can't really grasp shorthand or kanji either, right? A beginner not being able to get things means that the learning curve is higher.

Most musical notation is meant for non-beginners, right? And a lot of the beginner confusion is from features that are useful for advanced users. So there's a tradeoff.

There might, of course, be changes to be had. But a lot of beginner confusion is because the higher-level abstractions are needed.

A good example in mathematical notation is order of operations. Why not just do left to right? Or just going with Polish Notation?

Standard order of operations work well for people working with large formula, because they allow you to write many common things without many parentheses. But mandatory parentheses + left-to-right only would be easier for beginners.