I don’t mean it like that. What I’m trying to show you is the difference between a musical skill and the understanding of the art behind music. Don’t feel insulted, I will explain. A musician can be a great technical player, the greatest, and he/she can know all the theory in the world but can still never grasp the artistic point of it. All the great innovations in music came through minds of those who drew from the art in music. Theory then later made sense of it by taking examples of compositions and showing how the composer made it work. The hardest lesson and the last lesson any musician will ever have is letting go of what they have learned from theory, and start to play regardless of it’s ideas. Truly scary to any die hard theory major, but to be a true artist one must let go. The greatest musicians to touch the planet were great artists not theorists. That’s what I’m trying to “teach” you. I can only do that by showing you were theory has it’s faults, like the F, G, and I 6 chord and the tri-tone discussion.

As a theorist, your job is to challenge the theory to see if it holds water. Every time you have a theory, you should try to poke holes in it. That's how to tell the difference between theory and fact. Unfortunately music theory still is a theory, and half of being a musician (who studies theory) is being able to understand both the strengths and the faults of an idea. Sometimes I’m only trying to show you the faults. It’s the hardest lesson for any musician, who uses a lot of theory, to learn. It’s also the most neglected issue taught when an idea is presented to a student.

Learning the smallest touch of musical artistry is worth far more than all the theory knowledge in the world. I know many music majors and most think theory is the bible, heck I have 2 in my family. Again, since I say theory isn’t everything I am assumed to hate it. Not true. Theory is very important. You must know the rules to break them of course. Artistic (non-intellectual conception) is the key to music mastery not theory.

Why do I bother writing it. Because all I hear is how bad music is today and how there are so few true musicians out there. There’s my answer to that. Theory is what makes music dry, music is like nature and things happen in nature that science can’t explain. Music must flow freely without any constraints, theory is only the understanding and sometimes a clue to fix a problem.

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[Edited by noticingthemistake on 10-08-2003 at 08:33 PM]