It's About Playing Music!

I can relate to this since I started playing the guitar when I was three years old.

Now I have reached an understanding of music that trancends the instrument, and as a result I am able to quickly learn other instruments, like piano, bass, drums, saxophone, violin and accordion.

Also, in playing any istrument it is an ideal that the path of the notes you're playing is unobstructed from it's origin in you being to the tips of your fingers.
The jazz guitarist Al Di Meola talks about this.
Between the idea and the realization there are many obstructions, and these are the mental orientations of scales, bars, time and harmony.
While these ideas define music in such a way that it can be taught, they simultaneously restrict any player who cannot disregard this way of thinking while playing.
So the object of practice becomes to "teach" the body these things, so that it can react instantly to what happens in the player's head, without the player having to think about the application of the techniques.

It's less about disregarding than about internalzing. They're obstructions only if you (or your teacher) allow them to be--just as learning the rules of grammar is unlikely to hinder the development of your personal writing voice. Used properly, they are valuable teaching tools, as you mentioned. The number of musicians who've achieved success without music theory pales in comparison to the number of musicians who haven't.

I am not talking of a disregard of music theory. I believe that it is important to know theory, but only as a means of communication with other musicians.

As you say, learning the use of grammar is unlikely to be of any hindrance, and this opens an oportunity for me to clarify my point.

The rules of grammar need to be so familiarized that their applicance is unconscious. Otherwise how to convey what you're thinking becomes an issue along side with what to convey, and your true meaning may well become distorted by phrasings that seem artificial and undistinct.

It's the same with music. It is important to know the theory. But you have to know it so well that you apply it unconsciously, or it will be something that distorts the idea in your mind, making it sound like something you did not intend.

I guess.

But playing music is just as much about listening as it is playing. Sometimes the artist carries the tune, but sometimes the tune carries the artist.

Learning is both the shedding and gaining of knowledge.

Thinking is activity, but also passivity. A state of send/recieve. I generally find that the mind works better unhampered by my conscious intention. I like to set my mind on a problem and then forget it, move on to other things.
Then , suddenly, into my consciousness pops the answers to the questions I had.

Try it next time you cannot remember a word. When it's on the tip of your tounge.
If you start consciously delving your mind for the answer you will only mire it further in the bog of memory. The motivation for the search is the lack of an answer, and so the answer is unaccessible in your current frame of mind.
Better then to put it out of your mind, and in a short while it just comes sailing out of the blue..

Cryacuz

You are correct. Most of what goes on in our brain is unconscious. Our unconscious is working 24/7 and that is why it is a shame that we do not give our brain more important things to work on. It is like haveing a staff of employees and not giving them anything important to do and so they just play games.