[cyclecycle]

Really like the idea of trying to improve things that are so widely adopted and entrenched that most (me, at least) don't think to change.

We face the problem that people differ in what they think the features should be though. Ideally we would have a method to deduce what's the best symbolism for maximising input/output speed to human's minds. Some kind of scientific voodoo.

Beyond me what that might be.

[analog31]

I think that the effort to improve music notation should be encouraged, in spite of the entrenchment of traditional notation systems.

In my view there are two huge barriers:

First, sight-reading of traditional notation is a widely shared working skill that nobody's going to give up. It's too much of a productivity booster and ensemble management tool. If you write in nonstandard notation, nobody will play your stuff.

Second, the huge bulk of existing written music is in non computer readable form, so it can't be re-notated without considerable effort. My band has well over a thousand "charts" most of which were printed before the age of the personal computer.

Dealing with the second issue might help with the first. If there were a decent OCR for sheet music, it would create a bulk of "source code" for printing in modern notation, and perhaps give readers a choice. For me, since my brain is hard wired for traditional notation, that's what I would choose. But for someone learning to play music, they could choose a more intuitive system.