In computing we have massive amount of logic gates and wires into and out of the computer - from this we can create all kinds of things.
In music, you have intervals between frequencies and you have time intervals between these, ie rhythm.
Traditionally we divide the space between a sound frequency and the double of it into 12 notes, because it’s a great number to divide by. That means a middle A is 440Hz. 440Hzx2=880Hz. That interval is called “octave”.
Middle C on a piano is thus at 261.6256Hz [0].
Of these 12 “raw” simple fractional divisions, you can select a number of notes that played make a certain mood. If you start at C on a piano and hit the white keys to the next C, you will have hit the 8 notes we group as the “C major” scale.
In this group there are 8 frequencies selected. The 1st is middle C, 2nd is D, 3rd is E, and so forth. For this example I chose C major just because all the notes have easy names - so flats or sharps, but that’s just a side effect of the language we use to talk about tone frequencies.
The interval “5th” sounds great. Hit a C and then G and thank God for creating you in a world of beauty. The frequency of G is 1.5x the frequency of C. The major 5th of A is thus 440Hzx1.5=660Hz.
The major 3rd interval is also a beauty; hit C and then E. It’s all about fractions and multiples, and mathematical beauty.
Each interval in each scale (1st, 2nd, etc) have a certain feel to it. The 7th makes you feel tension - almost home! The 5th inspires heavenly joy.
You can try to find a song you know that contains the intervals. IIRC Norway’s pride Take On Me by A-Ha has a chorus beginning with a 7th and then one step - that would be C4-B5-C5. In Norwegian you’d write C4-H5-C5 though, since B is called H in “the Germanic tribes”, maybe so that you can play “B-A-C-H” on your instrument.
Just like if you nerd out on assembly or binary code for a few years, you can read what a processor would do by just seeing a list of numbers, if you do music for a while you can learn to read music without having to have an instrument embody it for you.
Enjoy music!
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piano_key_frequencies
Ps I agree with the parent comment - as always when reading something from NYT about a topic I’m not unfamiliar with, I realise it’s a publication somewhat detached from reality.