Music Theory? duuuhh

Alright folks, Another pondering thought has crossed my mind this evening (be afraid)... That is:
'Is music theory absolutely essential for all types of music?' My answer??

Most of the time! But depending on the genre of music you're playing, it's importance varies...
Genres such as jazz, prog & classical; having a knowledge of scales, harmony and sight reading is absolutely essential!!! Other styles such as punk, blues (I can probably think of more..) then.. you could probably get by without as much knowledge... (all entirely subjective and opinion based)

That's probably the reason why jazz/classical students have previously criticised the pop course. don't deny it...     
  
                                             ;)

HOWEVER! Playing a certain style does not limit your learning to a certain theoretical level. Generally, my opinion is listen and take from every style of music you can. I've currently got grade 6 music theory, I can't say I've felt particularly limited by my knowledge of theory. It's just a matter of getting the basic grasp of it, then the rest of it is pretty straight forward.

A case study!
When guitarists use different tunings, often it is to achieve a different kind of sound. From a songwriters view point, often it's to unfamilirarise themselves from the neck. You can know how to play every scale, position, time, chord and then some other guy comes along that knows nothing about that but can write better riffs! It's because not being aware of the theoretical aspect of what they're playing, they just know what sounds good.

A good idea? you don't have to know how to play every scale (although I still recommend it), something better is to pitch the note you're playing in your head. When you write melodies/solos/riffs, try singing them first then playing it on your instrument! Having relative pitch is more important than perfect pitch. Train your ears to recognise intervals, sing along while you're playing melodies, maybe even write out some notation and try to sing it out if you want to develop those bits.

Melodies should come from your head not your hands!