You can now sightread pages of hummingbird after 30 seconds of cursory inspection?

Hummingbird feels like a crutch to me. Hiding key signatures stunts your understanding of how music works. Forcing time to be marked explicitly as well as by altering spacing places odd constraints on typesetters. Humans use several subtle visual cues¹ to read music quickly and efficiently, and hummingbird just throws them all away.

I'm not sure this is worth the overhaul.

1: http://lilypond.org/web/about/automated-engraving/software

Yes, I can, very, very slowly, but much faster than with the regular notation, and mostly because I'm not used to sightreading regardless of how it's written. I think it will never appeal to classic / professional musicians or anyone who already feels comfortable with the regular notation, but for people lbike me, that for whatever neurological reason just can get the old notation to stick, this is priceless. The Above Below C Dot Empty Full Groove is such a great wiring that I will never be able to forget it. I might not read it fast as you read regular notes, but I will at least be able to practice. Reading regular notes to me was always counting lines, always missing the global # or b, and simply giving up serious music. I recorded music, had songs on the radio, I can play anything by ear, but not being able to read notes always bothers me. Now I can.

Hm. Thanks for replying; this does sound interesting.

If this had that much of an impact on you, and if this has the potential to encourage others to learn notation, I'd like to see a full study of how hummingbird compares to the regular notation.

How were you taught notation in the past?

Looking at the first part of God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen, hummingbird makes it look far more complex than it actually is. A simple series of quarternotes only changing in pitch, but hummingbird is changing two things - visual complexity (filled notes) and location.

I think it's bold and interesting, but ultimately I think it hasn't got legs.

Yes, machine transposing of hummingbird is trivial, but what about transposing while sight-reading? I have to do that regularly, and the removal of the key-signature makes that impossible.