Yes, absolutely!

Yes. The greatest achievements of the humanities were obtained at a time when there were very few books. People used for their study purposes the object/subject to be studied, their 5 senses and their ability to think.

Music IS a language. And just like learning a language, learning an instrument happens mainly through imitation, practice and accepting criticism. If this process takes place in an appropriate environment with high input, chances are good that you'll master an instrument and the ways to use it before you've even read a single word of theory. The theory then teaches you why what works works and why what doesn't work doesn't work.

Did you have to use a calculator when you made your first sentences to put different words in a row? And a few years later, when you could already form more complex sentences, did you need a calculator or did you have to think about the correct comma placement and the pause when you inserted subordinate clauses while speaking? Did you have to learn to read and write in order to form subordinate clauses when speaking? And after a few more years, will you have thought about the correct use of future tense to form your sentences while talking to a friend about the future?

 

Last edited: Dec 22, 2020

I want to add something.

1. Let's take the first musician. He/she played or sang (I think he/she sang) without any theory. There were no schools, books, teachers etc. Making in the human life always precedes the theory. Music isn't an exception. But music theory saves us from (re)inventing the wheel. Usually it really isn't needed.

2. European music theory is based on Mozart' music (there was plenty of great composers but Mozart found his place among them). That's why Mozart' music seems to be "mathematically perfect". We "extracted" our "formulae of the perfection" from his music and then we apply these formulae to... Mozart' music! Nothing surprising. We judge Mozart music by its own standards. The standards it established

Mozart' music isn't so perfect if we look at it from the point of view of different musical cultures. There is no universal formula of the perfection. It depends on our presuppositions, a tradition we belong etc.

3. Glenn Gould said that later music of Mozart was a fraud. Young Mozart was a genius but his later music... I'm disposed to agree with him. To many "math" in later Mozart. And no soul.

BUT MUSIC THEORY IS IMPORTANT. DON'T IGNORE IT.