The same note can be found on different strings. Sheet music doesn’t tell you which one to play. That just one example that makes it hard

On a piano, musical notation doesn't tell you which finger or hand you should use. This seems similar.

Just for clarification, I asked because GP said:

> You can’t quite run it on different hardware: unlike on a piano, the note does not uniquely determine how something is played on, say, a guitar.

It’s not similar, because it doesn’t even tell you where to put the finger of your choice in a guitar, whereas that is uniquely specified on a piano. Of course, on top of that, you also have a wide range of ways to modify how you play on a guitar.

I still don't see the point. If you practice a piece, you have to practice how to put which finger where, on a piano or a guitar. It's part of practicing to figure this out.

> Of course, on top of that, you also have a wide range of ways to modify how you play on a guitar.

Yeah, same with the piano. And I think, with most of all instruments.

You can easily build a robot that you feed sheet music, and that robot will then be able to press the right buttons on a piano keyboard.

This is not possible for a guitar (and others) because there is no unique mapping between the note on the sheet and the position on the instrument.

This sounds needlessly antagonistic, but I hope I’m just reading nuance wrong.

You probably do. I play two instruments (not guitar obviously) and I want to know why musical notation is a problem for guitarists.

I know it's not really suited for e.g. non-western or modern quarter-tone music. But since I don't play the guitar I would like to understand the reasoning behind your qoute:

> You can’t quite run it on different hardware: unlike on a piano, the note does not uniquely determine how something is played on, say, a guitar.

Is that more clear?

It’s still antagonistic because sheet music is not ‘a problem’ for guitarists.

I never said it's a problem. I asked what's the problem that "You can’t quite run it on [...] say, a guitar."

You specifically refer to guitarists’ problem with notation, not the mathematical non-uniqueness. You ask you want to know why “musical notation is a problem for guitarists.”

It’s not.

Am I missing something, or are you directly contradicting your original comment?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28725817

If you actually read my comment (try it!) you will see that I make a statement about sheet music not uniquely specifying where on a guitar a specific note is to be played. I make no statement whatsoever about guitarists.

You seem to have trouble with the concept that the vast majority of instruments does not yield a recognizable melody simply by pressing the right button at the right time. All of those musicians are doing just fine, thank you very much.