[plus9z]

Sure, these are generally valid points, but Hummingbird doesn't really solve them. I'd love to see a solution to those problems, though. >12-pitch solutions exist, but they're just cumbersome.

I'd disagree about the precision of note lengths and tempi being a problem, though, simply because humans aren't very good at keeping exact time. I mean, ask someone to count off exactly 60 beats evenly divided over the course of a minute. What about 80? 100? 133? The speed at which you count off is highly dependent on your heart rate (and possibly state of mind). So assuming we have an exact tempo, what's the likelihood a note length within it is going to be played with that same amount of precision? Well, it's all up to the musician's ability to interpret the composer's intentions, which is much the same as what we have now. In fact, there are ways even now to specify exact bpm (even if we can't exactly express slight tempo changes). The notes themselves are estimates, but fairly good ones at that, and they're effective enough to get the point across to the musician.

[archagon]

Well, with tempi, my main gripe isn't the exact BPM but rather the fact that you have to memorize all this obscure Italian (+ other?) terminology in order to understand what's going on. Why can't we have standard localized terms instead?

As for exact note lengths, I mostly agree with you, except for certain pieces of modern music (EDM, for instance) where the meter is fairly rigid but the note lengths are off from the defaults. It would be nice to be able to represent that accurately.