> Why has there never existed an alternative musical notation system thats truely different? Because musicians tend to be 1. conservative, so that they're unl

> Why has there never existed an alternative musical notation system thats truely different? Because musicians tend to be 1. conservative, so that they're unlikely to accept one, 2. elitist/guildlike, so that they don't especially mind barriers to entry, and 3. self-aggrandizing, so that of ten musicians inclined to propose an alternative notation, every one will suggest his own and ridicule the nine other proposals. Western notation is really as bad as it seems, though - it encourages optical illusions (notes with opposed stems seem closer or further away from each other than they actually are, for instance) and is quite brittle (add a sixth line to a staff in the middle of the page, and many experienced sight readers will just play on and not notice anything is amiss except that the music suddenly got very strange). Mass music literacy seems out of reach with the current notation systems. Even of people who can sight-read, many (probably most) do so by associating notes with instrument finger positions instead of intervals, so they can't read an unknown melody without their instrument at hand. I think the most successful, more rational system is the number notation they use in China (which also has been reinvented many times in Europe). Funny that China should have the awkward writing system, but the sensible music notation system. Most successful alternative notation systems seem to come from religious instructors, who were more concerned with helping the congregation to sing. Mass music literacy mattered from them in a way it didn't for professional musicians. Shape note is an American system (although an adaption of the regular one, still squiggles) and there are number notation systems in Scandinavia developed for the same reason, teaching the peasants to sing in four-part harmony. I wonder if the Chinese system doesn't have roots in missionary work, too - they use western numerals, after all.