"Pseudo-intellectual musings" -that's quite an affront. But you got a valid point...sorry I mean points, plural. The only reason I started talking to you was because you responded to my post. No, I don't necessarily disagree with you on the big picture of whether theory can help, it certainly can't hurt -I think you're entirely right there and everything prior has established that...it's just that I think certain qualities (i.e. what I said about having "the ear") are more advantageous to master than others (i.e. knowing every standard in the book and it's history). Also, you can say it can't hurt, but debate just how important it is in degrees. I guess my official position is: It can't hurt, but it isn't everything to making music. My biggest mistake was in wanting to discuss a rather tangential area of a rather small part of the big subject (theory). And most of the things I've seen posted by others in this thread are pretty well thought out and interesting. That's why I kept coming back. Contradiction? I implied that everything was "in my opinion" and wasn't trying to be objective. What I said about taste was the same: no objective plane to base like and dislike on. Again, opinion. "Greatest accidents in music"...well, how about the "Second Great" Miles Davis Quintet with my personal fav Tony Williams? By all written accounts I've seen it seems to be an accident in it's formation. Could be wrong though. My fault for not posting that in the original post up there a few bars ago. I realized how stupid that looked without the example the next time I came back. Sorry if my posts are cryptic, but I kinda check this like email, my illness and working to pay for it ($250,000+) doesn't leave a lotta time for surfing the net...my fault again. Can't read the original posts close enough I guess to accurately reply. Probably shouldn't use that as a crutch, since I'd probably be just as incoherent given all the time in the world. I was just writing on something I thought was interesting. I thought "the challenges" were just fine. It seems on some level there can't be any ground for finding any agreement. But, if I'm the only one who can understand what I'm saying then...well no point in having a conversation right? I'll do everyone on this board a favor and just stop posting here now though. Didn't realize that this was going nowhere really fuckin' fast. If it's on account of me, I apologize in advance. It's also kinda annoying for others having this oust other new subjects by constantly being at top. Outta my league and probably subject range. The care and effort left my posts a long time ago. Mea Culpa. Detrimentum ad infinitum
