I actually looked at Rainbow just yesterday and noticed you doing this. XD Immediately I wondered whether you'd put a link up here, and here it is.
Anyway, I think this is a great use of Arc. Whenever I'm manipulating something that has a lot of patterns in it, my programmer senses tingle and I find myself wanting to abstract things away. That way, the project is smaller and easier to wrangle, and I can't make small mistakes writing out all the patterns myself. Music is a perfect example of this, as you say.
As someone who only knows sheet music well enough to count my way eventually to the right keys on the piano, I'd like to volunteer that s2/4/5 jumps off the page for me even better than the sheet music does, since I don't have sharps and flats to worry about. In fact, I think I'd be more confident playing that opening motif if I put the Arc version in front of me. XD Chances are I just don't know what I'm missing, but still I hope you don't let the text-only nature of Arc discourage you. ^_^
my programmer senses tingle and I find myself wanting to abstract things away - you hit the nail on the head there. What's more, I'm sure there's meaning in those patterns if we could only make them explicit - listening to music is sometimes listening to a conversation in a mostly-foreign language - words here and there that you recognize, you suspect that something meaningful is being communicated, but it's just beyond your grasp.
don't let the text-only nature of Arc discourage you - no chance, I'm too far gone for that.
