Is Music Theory Useless?

[Richard-H]

Years ago I played in a country/western band with a singer/rythm guitarist who only knew a handful of open chords - and knew no theory whatsoever. Most Rock n' Rollers no little more than that. None of them ever wrote or played a truly original song - though they thought that they did. If that's your musical goals - fine.

But Jazz is fine art...there's more to it than just pulling of a song to get over on a crowd. Knowing music theory is just a stepping stone to creating that art - yes, you can cross a river without a stepping stone, but it will be harder and take longer - and you likely won't ever get across.

Do you really think that Picasso or Dali would have achieved their level of artistry without knowing geometry?

In theory, any 2 year old can schmack some paint on a canvas and make a master piece, just as in theory, if you have an infinite number of monkeys with typewriters, given an infinite amount of time, they will type 'War and Peace' an infinite number of times.

In reality, it doesn't work that way.

[Broyale]

I can relate to what the OP is feeling. I've found that in learning theory, there are often too many schools of thought clashing with one another and without any sort of standard approach to keep things clean and orderly, its us novice students who are left to sort out the mess. I'm experiencing this right now, I have a professor who teaches one thing, a textbook that says another, and several online sources that contradicts them both. Add into the frustration that comes from having to sort out poorly taught concepts or overemphasized explanations and its enough to turn anyone off to learning theory. The thing is, having a strong proficiency in an specialty doesn't mean you're qualified to teach it, by default.

[cosmic gumbo]

I was just studying about parallel modal substitution of the #4 phrygian tritone using chromatic applications of subdominant cadences in relationship to minor 2nd interchange. If it's on the internet, it must be true, right?