You don't need to understand either notation to use ABC - it depends on what you use it for.
ABC - to audio is good enough for ears. If all you want is to hear the tune, and learn to the melody. As Louis Armstrong said about his ability to read staff notation - "not so much to get in the way of the music". And isn't it extremely infra-dig to play from the dots in a session?

There are plenty of good players (see this thread) and HARMONY was written by our own 'Catter pavane