alt Hacker NewsThis is debatable because I dont know what you mean when you say they didnt know theory. Hendrix is a great example, supposedly he didnt know, but it is very clear he would play the pentatonic of the quality of chord he was playing over. Is that knowing theory? Or playing is playing the BB King box theory? Or is knowing the major scale theory? It's almost certain that the best guitars that you're saying, some of these things. So do you mean the nomenclature?
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Right, you can be an incredibly articulate speaker without necessarily knowing the grammatical terms for the different parts of speech in each sentence.
I think there's a number of people who learned to play by ear who just sort of "internalized" theory without needing a formal curriculum.
They have taste for sure and an ear for a blues lick, but they don't know formal theory. It's like how my cat understands gravity but has no awareness of formal gravitational theory or the maths involved.