[imperistan]

The same note can be found on different strings. Sheet music doesn’t tell you which one to play. That just one example that makes it hard

[moehm]

On a piano, musical notation doesn't tell you which finger or hand you should use. This seems similar.

Just for clarification, I asked because GP said:

> You can’t quite run it on different hardware: unlike on a piano, the note does not uniquely determine how something is played on, say, a guitar.

[nautilius]

It’s not similar, because it doesn’t even tell you where to put the finger of your choice in a guitar, whereas that is uniquely specified on a piano. Of course, on top of that, you also have a wide range of ways to modify how you play on a guitar.

[moehm]

I still don't see the point. If you practice a piece, you have to practice how to put which finger where, on a piano or a guitar. It's part of practicing to figure this out.

> Of course, on top of that, you also have a wide range of ways to modify how you play on a guitar.

Yeah, same with the piano. And I think, with most of all instruments.

[nautilius]

You can easily build a robot that you feed sheet music, and that robot will then be able to press the right buttons on a piano keyboard.

This is not possible for a guitar (and others) because there is no unique mapping between the note on the sheet and the position on the instrument.