The author and anyone else who understands correctly that traditional music notation is shitty in lots of ways and is trying to understand how music really work

The author and anyone else who understands correctly that traditional music notation is shitty in lots of ways and is trying to understand how music really works should go get the book "Music and Memory: An Introduction" by Bob Snyder. It uses no music notation and explains music in terms of psychological principles of perception of time. It's not a complete theory of everything, but it shows the way you should be understanding the nature of music. Beyond that, check out Sweet Anticipation by David Huron, and Tuning Timber Spectrum Scale by William Sethares (and his other Rhythms and Transforms, see http://sethares.engr.wisc.edu/ http://sethares.engr.wisc.edu/ for web versions of first chapter of each). These sorts of resources are where real understanding of music comes from. Not from the "theory" stuff us music professionals had to deal with that fails to explain anything well.