Does the author actually play piano? I didn't see him explicitly say it. I play violin, and reading sheet music was never a limiting factor. It was not a challenge to learn, and you don't learn all the symbols in the beginning. As you get more proficient and read harder music, only then do you learn new symbols.
Maybe sheet music can be improved upon, but the real question is should it? Sheet music is easy enough to learn, and once you learn it, all music opens up to you.
I'm a violist, and I used to teach violin and piano. With stringed instruments, as you say, just making a sound and holding the instrument right are so difficult for beginners, reading music pales in comparison. Piano is unique-ish as an instrument that you can sit down at and start making a sound essentially right away. I found that for my beginner piano students, learning to read was probably the biggest challenge starting out. However, not learning to read is even worse, as then you won't be able to learn music going forward.
And, all that being said, learning to read music is really not very difficult. There seem to be a lot of complaints from the HN crowd about music notation, but learning to read music is wayyy easier than learning a new programming language. Seriously, just get over it and learn the system that everybody else uses, and you will be able to play any piece in just about any repertoire on the planet.
In my view the hard thing is sight-reading. With programming, if it takes one person twice as long as another, to read or write a program, at worst their productivity will be a bit lower. Or maybe higher. ;-) If you can't read music at tempo, then there are certain kinds of work that you can't do at all.
Granted, sight-reading skill is a matter of degree. I can read a jazz band gig, but would struggle with complex modern orchestral music. In musical styles that I'm familiar with, I can often make a good enough guess about what's next, that I only have to focus my attention on the dangerous bits. My attention often wanders away from the page.
I used to think that sight-reading was something that had to be learned, starting at an early age. I don't know if I still believe that, but I know that most adults who attempt to learn, find it to be prohibitive. This is one reason why it would be great to find an alternative. Even a piano with keys that light up.
As someone with an occasional passing interest in playing the piano, Synthesia has been great for me when it comes to learning songs. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WolqGAgiolM
Of course, it is not exactly a substitute for sheet music, but it is eminently readable to the novice.
I play both piano and trumpet and I think two hands make reading music at least a little bit more difficult. I've never struggled with reading trumpet music, but lots of piano sheet music still gives a hard time at tempo.
But there's no easy solution to that. You can create notation that makes things easier on certain situations (e.g., it's not unusual to see jazz music sheets with the melody and chords in american notation, such as http://www.saxuet.qc.ca/TheSaxyPage/Realbook%20C/Fly_me_to_t...).
However, you can't create such a notation for every situation because, some times, piano pieces are hard and notation is not going to make things easier. There's hardly a way to clearly see the notes you have to play and their timing when there're multiple notes in different melodic lines. with different rythms: it's just hard and it's not because of the notation.
I have the feeling that it's badly conveyed by """musical pedagogy""". All the theory and notation isn't the essence of music but that's the main communication channel they make student interact with and through.
I wouldn't say it's not challenging, but it's out of place, thus tedious. As other people said, it's an abstraction for people doing the art, IMVHO it's not important unless you are doing the art.
Indeed, and there are entire musical genres where there is little or no pedagogy, and very little sheet music. You'd be hard pressed to find sheet music for the typical rock 'n' roll song. Tunes -- often quite elaborate -- are developed or learned by ear, and played from memory.
But it's not just for pedagogy. It's a practical tool for musicians, because it lets you throw people together to make coherent music quickly. This could be just playing string quartets in somebody's living room, or running a large performing ensemble. The size of one band that I'm in virtually ensures that there will be at least one new member or substitute at every performance. The ability of players who can read the stuff influences what can be composed.
And a lot of this music isn't even commercially viable for the people who play it (such as in my case), but there's just the enjoyment of exploring the world of written music.
Maybe sheet music can be improved upon, but the real question is should it? Sheet music is easy enough to learn, and once you learn it, all music opens up to you.