[tikhonj]

Programming languages are far more than notation. Notation is just syntax, and syntax is not that important. The syntax has to be readable and pleasant and unambiguous but that is it--nothing more, nothing less.

But programming languages go well beyond this: a programming language is a combination of syntax with semantics. And semantics, by far, is the most important part!

In your musical analogy, syntax would be the notation and semantics would be music theory or composition--the music itself. Semantics pervades everything: it controls what you can express, how you can express it and even how you think about it. All this is very much a function of the programming language more than any other tool or component in a software system.

The computer is the instrument, but the instrument is just an implementation detail. It's what we use to produce the music, but it's the music itself that we create.

As you said, you are a composer not a musician: so which part, then, is important?