This often asked question is asked because written music consists of strange shapes and lines, which we know as sheet music.
Music is written in the way it is, to make reading of it easy and quick. To facilitate this a graphical approach has been chosen as it is easier to understand quickly than the written word.
This form of written music was not how music was originally written. Originally, music was written using a few shapes with written words being used to quantify the shapes, later a few lines were added for specific notes, then, four lines were sometimes used. French composers began using five lines, which became the standard by the seventeenth century and of course remains to this day. So it is true to say that the present form of written music has evolved rather than been invented or decided upon.
Humans are much better at taking action when presented with things graphically rather than when written down. A graphical symbol is instantly recognized and an action can be taken just as quickly. The written word needs to read and interpreted before an action can be decided upon and taken.
Written descriptions of music could never be read, understood, interpreted and then played at sensible speeds. This is recognized in many areas of life. Road signs use graphics rather than words to convey their meaning rapidly to the driver.
For a human being seeing notes on the musical lines graphically is easier than reading words. Notes on lines can be seen as patterns. Patterns can be reproduced on a musical instrument very easily with great speed.
Having a graphical interface allows a wide range of information to be placed on the music paper, which is constantly available to the musician as it is repeated in each section of the
music. This additional information can be the speed the music is to be played at, the key the music is to be played in, the volume the music is to be played at, the mood of the music and a host of other features that the musician needs to assist their playing to ensure that the music sounds as the composer intended it to sound.
Although music resembles how it looked in the seventeenth century it continues to develop and even though it looks similar, many of the names once used are slowly changing to more modern names. As an example, bar lines are often now called measures, crochets, are called quarter notes and others have changed similarly.
