>>93676
>many notes are straight up arbitrary and their staff positions are often vague
Um, what? Second line in the treble clef is g, third line in bass clef is f. There's other clefs like alto with similar rules. Nothing vague about it. Even the clef's appearance keys you in on what note goes on which line. The little dot in a treble clef is right on the same line as g. All written systems are, "arbitrary". There's no good reason for 5 to be written like it is.
>Learning to play by ear is a much more useful skill
Yeah, if you have perfect pitch and are a magically born virtuoso. With relative pitch, you're not going to be able to play something with four voices without listening to it for hours and having a perfect grasp of the keyboard, which you wont have unless you played a fuck load, which you wont be able to do unless you can read sheet music. Playing by ear is a useful skill, but you can't rely on it alone because the only way to get that good in the first place is if you learned a lot, which is ten trillion times more easy you if take the time to learn notation. Yes it's utilitarian. Why do you act like that makes it lesser? Forget about composing any counterpoint without knowing notation. There's a reason why those people failed. Here's a video of an innovator. He made his own system and everything.