Make your literacy so solid that you don’t need it anymore.
“The fish trap exists because of the fish. Once you’ve gotten the fish you can forget the trap. The rabbit snare exists because of the rabbit. Once you’ve gotten the rabbit, you can forget the snare. Words exist because of meaning. Once you’ve gotten the meaning, you can forget the words. Where can I find a man who has forgotten words so I can have a word with him?”
from Zhuangzi by Zhuang Zhou
Music theory is like the fish trap or the rabbit snare. It’s a tool made to help you catch the music. Once you’ve caught it – once you understand it thoroughly – it’s no a useful tool.
I really think this: while we communicate about music with the language of music theory, it’s my belief that the master practitioners of music-making don’t use that language in their head. I don’t think Stevie Wonder is thinking about circle-of-fifths functionality and alternate dominant chords, he’s just expressing the music. The same for Mozart, Brahms, and Stravinsky. Any music-maker who makes transcendent music has left the fish trap behind and is working directly with the thing itself.
That doesn’t mean you don’t need to develop music literacy. Literacy is the way to catch the fish in the first place, and only the most lucky few can catch a fish with their bare hands. But don’t mistake music literacy for music itself. It’s just the path.