[Cthulhu_]

I mean, English isn't hard to learn if you grew up with it either, but it's still three languages in a trenchcoat with a ton of weird things.

I mean, pronounce all of these words that have the same combinations of the letters "ough": though, through, rough, cough, thought, bough, plough, ought and borough. The notation is the same, but it's clearly not adequate to express the difference between pronunciation. If you grew up with it, you Know how they're pronounced, but as a non-native you wouldn't.

[scrozier]

This isn't a parallel argument. There are no ambiguities in standard musical notation that parallel the pronunciation issue you point out in English. Further, there are no non-traditional-music-notation "speakers" trying to learn musical notation. One is (almost) always learning it anew, unless perhaps you're coming at it from a different notation system, which is a different discussion.

[wl]

Intervals are ambiguous on the staff in the traditional system. They're disambiguated by reference to the clef and key signature. The whole point of this new system is to remove that ambiguity so you don't constantly have to keep the clef and key signature in mind when analyzing intervals.

[scrozier]

Fair point. I can see how that might be nice. I will say that, if you play music a lot from traditional notation, that ambiguity completely disappears into the background.

[Jeff_Brown]

> English [is] three languages in a trenchcoat

I love it.