They tried to teach me various instruments when I was a boy. I didn't mind the playing, but Lord Almighty how I hated the notation stuff. It simply made no sense whatever, and was - as you describe it - clearly invented by morons. Only when I ventured into tech-land in my teenage years did any of it finally click: So that's what they mean by 'octave' - a doubling of frequency. Why couldn't they just have said so? Harmonies, chords, what have you - it was all just frequencies and sine waves. Didn't musicians know anything?

These many years later, I still don't quite get it, but do of course realise there must be some sort of point to it all. High level language? Yes, I get it. Bach wrote in Python, not C. Time to revisit.