This is absurd. Sure, someone below posits that MIDI could perhaps represent a piano performance by Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli. I think it has been able to

This is absurd. Sure, someone below posits that MIDI could perhaps represent a piano performance by Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli. I think it has been able to do a passing job at that, when you provide a decent piano. Regardless, piano rolls have been able to come close since the early 20th century. But how well does MIDI represent music performed by John Coltrane? Jimi Hendrix? It falls on its face. The long fetishized Western music notation abstraction, which MIDI poorly simulates, completely fails for many important examples of music. I would even venture to say that MIDI fails for most of them. But yes, MIDI is well-optimized for piano music where an acceptable piano or simulation is available.