[noonespecial]

Or sheet music. It always amazed me that humans came up with any solution at all to "here's a piece of paper, tell me what your song sounds like" to say nothing of one that actually works to some degree.

I've always wondered how much classical music sounds the way it does because sheet music is the way it is.

[the_cat_kittles]

my guess is that the sheet music has an enormous effect. because it can encode somethings very well, and other things poorly.

[oddlyaromatic]

An example of this is Chinese guqin tablature. It can be centuries old and includes a lot of detail on where to place fingers and how to strike the strings, which can give you hints about pitch and timbre when combined with knowing the tuning, strings, etc. But the tablature has almost nothing to say about the LENGTH of each note, so rhythm has to be inferred by the performer from what they know about the culture.

[ssttoo]

Look up the documentary "thin red line" on YouTube