"I ask again, how do you notate an Irish reel or a Swedish Boda polska so that someone who's never heard one will be able to play it?"

With care and attention to detail.

If you go and watch a poetry reading by Benjamin Zephaniah, you can write down the words.

If you write it down in dictionary perfect English, you will have the poem right, but you will lose some of the character.

It is possible to write with a bit more phonetic sensitivity and get close to the original.

When you read it out, it probably won't sound like Benjamin Zephaniah regardless of how well his nuances are captured on the page.

But if you listen and try to copy, it is still unlikely that you will get it perfect as you are a different person.

If someone who had never heard BZ speak were to read a well transcribed poem of his, they would probably get a good sense of its lilt.

Music historians are able to get an idea of the lilt of Medieval speech and music without having heard it.

In light of all the above statements, it can bew said that the written form of passing music on has its shortcomings, but so does the aural form.

Each musician has their own character.

At least with the written form there is less chance of generational chinese whispers diluting the music and a better chance of preserving older forms.

To say tat the Aural way is better, or the written way is better is a petty facile argument.

But what I said, that if you can hear it you can write it down, is 100% correct.

There are ways.