[LegionMammal978]

> Maybe a string-instrument player could comment on usefulness for string music?

Speaking from my experience playing violin (as an ameteur), players generally practice their scales until the finger positions become muscle memory. This way, the key provides the entire note position -> finger position mapping, and accidentals simply become half-step modifications. Since the scales would need to be learned anyway to play tonal music, I don't see how this notation would simplify anything.

[_moof]

Can concur as a bass player. Tell me to play (for example) a B and without even thinking, my hand will move to the second fret on the A string. Put a flat sign on it and I just move one fret down.

I also know the "shapes" of intervals though, and they are constant. A half-step is always one fret, a whole step is always two. A minor third is a minor third is a minor third: one finger on fret N of string M, the other finger on fret N-2 of string M+1; the names of the notes are irrelevant.

[MandieD]

I pulled my flute out of its case after over five years, and within minutes was playing all my scales, and able to play the melody lines out of a hymnal. My tone was awful, and my lips got tired long before my hands.

To this day, I still associate flute fingerings with music I read for singing.

Or piano, which gets messy…