You seem to have conflated two points here: 1. that the majority of musicking all over the world takes place in a western tonal based system, and 2. that the ma

You seem to have conflated two points here: 1. that the majority of musicking all over the world takes place in a western tonal based system, and 2. that the majority of musicking all over the world uses western notation. These things are not the same, and given your earlier comment: >Western notation is used throughout the world, even more so than local notation systems I have assumed we're talking about notation, rather than tonality. In which case, of course someone can be using Western tonality while not using Western notation- this is a decent part of my point. I could be playing the original Renaissance organ tablature or whatever and not be using Western notation in the sense that you mean. No one is saying that Ariana Grande is operating in a non-western mode of music but I'm fairly sure you could find people who worked on her recordings who aren't working from sheet music. Your example of piano roll or NNS are also the kinds of things I am talking about, as is you know, a baroque ensemble whose lutenist is using tablature. This is because you absolutely can't say that charts and tablature are notation 'hacks'- they are, like the western notation that you're talking about, sets of instructions that tell you to varying degrees of clarity how to physically carry out a harmonic or melodic sequence. Thinking that chart=notation=tablature is similarly inaccurate as saying Western tonality=Western notation, and therefore me bringing up DAWs is entirely relevant- so is bringing up oral traditions and other contemporary modes of writing pop (etc) music that doesn't use notation. Secondly, since we're basing our points on our experiences, here is my relevant experience: I work in professional orchestras in several countries, I've played in orchestras and sessions alongside bands, supervised students teaching modern and traditional instruments, performed in the improv circuit, worked with experimental composers and in education projects with children. The only one of these settings where I haven't encountered people who do not use western notation (the notation that you and I are talking about, with key and time signatures, staves and barlines) is professional symphony orchestras. Of course western notation is relevant given the historical dominance of western culture, but by no means is it as ubiquitous as you think it is. My colleagues teach songwriting and electronic music/sound design to hundreds of pupils without it. People teach instruments without it and make performing careers without it. I think you possibly can't see the forest of non-notated musicking that occurs for the trees and think that everyone making music everywhere is reading off a western notation score.