Think of the parallel with poetry. It would be possible, I suppose, to read a poem and get the metre (rhythm)correct if it were a long tickertape. But look how much easier it is when written in stanzas and separated into lines.

Ditto for music notation which, after all, is simply a method of shorthand to enable the music reader to reproduce the sound the writer intended... quickly and easily. Like poetry, music breaks into recognizeable note patterns and repeated parts. Notation facilitates the recognition of those... as well as the memorizing of melodies, as required by some instruments and performances.