How informative is staff notation? It indicates pitch, duration, dynamics, and few other elements. But surely there is much more to music. And yet we cling to these earliest transcriptions as though they are the portal to the Sound of 'Ancient Irish Music'. This presentation will look at the work of some early collectors and will hope to generate a lively discussion about making musical sounds from musical hieroglyphs, written down from live performances over the past 300 years.