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Good stuff, I agree with that sentiment completely.
I think basically everyone agrees that music theory can be useful, but it shouldn't be some kind of sacred cow that is beyond criticism and it also shouldn't constrain artists from expressing themselves outside of its set of boundaries.
The blues wouldn't exist if you couldn't play blue notes. Thousands of songs use chromatic passing notes, borrowed chords, quarter-tone guitar bends - all things which break the "rules". Music theory is just a framework, not a straightjacket.
@richardyot : Music theory in no way way would prevent the blues or jazz from developing.
The blues or bebop or postbop or free jazz or Indian classical music or .... anything you can name .... are not in opposition with music theory (which is a misnomer since what we call music theory is just formal analysis).
People sometimes (mistakenly) treat music theory as "rules" as opposed to a framework for understanding and mistakenly treat descriptions of conventions as rules of music... in the way that style manuals for writing are sometimes misunderstood to be descriptive rules of grammar.
The tools of analysis are descriptive not prescriptive, even if some people make the mistake of believing so...because they view their preferred convention as being true music. That error is on them not the tools of analysis.
Not even a framework per se but more like "guidelines".
As I said above, when I first learned basic Western Classical music theory in uni, I thought they were "hard and fast rules" for creating "proper" music. I felt constrained at first. Being on the spectrum, I am often prone to literal thinking (although not as much as I once used to be back in uni, lol). I didn't realise back then that Western Classical music theory were more like abstract guidelines, not hard-and-fast rules.
Schoenberg didn't "follow the rules". John Cage didn't "follow the rules". Stockhausen didn't "follow the rules". Many incredible Rockstars didn't "follow the rules" (especially not in Prog Rock). "No parallel fifths"? Please! A lot of Deadmau5 tracks are loaded full of parallel fifths and octaves, and those tracks sound amazing.
So in short Richard, I understand what you and JanKun are saying, and I don't disagree. I'm more of a Relativist when it comes to music and Western Classical music theory, especially these days. The more genres I explore in music, and the more musical cultural traditions I study, the more I realise "there is no universal set of rules on how to make music".
I still think Western Classical music theory is important to learn for some sort of a musical foundation, especially counterpoint, but the Baroque era was from over a couple centuries ago. And there are so many other musical traditions from other cultures out there to explore and take inspo from that don't "fit in" with Western Classical music theory.
If anyone does insist that theory is in some way necessary to being able to compose or play well it reminds me of what Charlie Parker supposedly said:
“First you learn your instrument, and then you learn the music, and then you forget all that shit and just play.”
Parker doesn't seem like an example of someone creating music without a solid formal grounding. He was a highly trained musician who practiced classical exercises daily as his warm-up routine (there is a great recording of him being interviewed about his warm-up process in which he runs through the exercises) , had a phenomenally good ear, had deep knowledge of harmonic concepts and gave a lot of thought to the theory (organizational principles) of the music he was developing.
So, yeah he "threw away the rules" but knew them cold and created new ones. He is an example of someone whose music would not have come into being without a profound understanding of the traditions that preceded him. The jazz tradition is rich with musicians intentionally creating new forms and traditions.
Someone like Brian Wilson is an interesting example as he apparently didn't have a lot of formal knowledge ...but he had phenomenal ears and musical memory even if he didn't know the names for things. As a child, he could hear the individual parts of music he heard and sing them note for note. There are other examples like Wilson, but these are people with a level of inherent skill/genius that is exceedingly rare.
Music is language. And music theory is just a tool for better understanding that language. Knowing lots of words and grammar doesn't mean you'll suddenly be able to make great poetry. Conversely, if you don't have much vocabulary and an understanding of grammar, that limitation can inhibit your ability to imagine new ideas or express your imagination.
As a speech language pathologist I work with people who often have intact cognition (like an average iq) but have a language disability that keeps them from fully expressing that IQ in day to day life. I work with people who are stuck using words like happy, sad, mad...they have ideas of ecstacy, melancholy, and fury, but absent the words for those concepts, can't express them easily.
Knowing music theory is a lot like having vocabulary and grammar. You don't need a great vocabulary and grammar sense to be expressive, but if you don't have the words to communicate what you have inside, you can get stuck.
And music theory isn't just western concepts of scales, keys, chords, etc.. If we're broader, it is related to musical idiom. Listening to lots of blues music helps you learn the idiom, the specific grammar and content of the blues, which can expand your ability to imagine in the blues and express yourself in the blues. Classical musicians will have difficulty playing blues music even if they understand formal western music theory because they don't have experience with the style. Just like memoir writers will have difficulty writing scifi if they have never read scifi.
Of course it's possible to be an incredible blues musician without knowing any western music theory...but these people have usually immersed themselves in the blues idiom, which has essentially given them access to the theory and language they need to express themselves in the blues.
On the flip side, people can easily study theory and idiom and just regurgitate scales or copy licks or miss the groove entirely. And we've all met people with huge vocabularies who just throw meaningless but fancy word salad around that generally expresses little. We've all listened to extremely difficult jazz or metal solos that are technically impressive but don't make us feel any emotion.
That's why imagination and instinct are irreplaceable...and as long as you don't let theory (a tool) become rules that replaces your imagination and feel, theory will just give you more ways to express yourself.
Brian Wilson was probably somewhere in the middle. He would apparently write lead sheets for the Wrecking Crew, but I remember an interview with Carol Kaye where she said he made a lot of mistakes in them.