This is not even true across history. "The idols" in jazz did knew and did applied theory.
> To improvise you first of all require musical talent on both harmonic and rhythmic dimensions
I mean, you need ability to keep rhythm and play notes. But beyond that, you absolutely can get away with theory only with basically zero special talent. You wont become world famous, but you will be able to match what the rest of group is playing.
> even what we know today as "classical music" was often improvised in the past; many great composers were also great improvisers.
Also going back to original comment, you seem to put theory and improvisation into some kind of dichotomy. But, both being great composer and great improviser are heavily facilitated by understanding theory.
> "The idols" in jazz did knew and did applied theory
When jazz music appeared, there were no conservatories or theory for it. The first jazz conservatories emerged fifty years later. Today they find many graduates, for example, from Berklee. But this is a development that has only begun in the last forty years. It didn't make the music better, it just made it different.
> You wont become world famous
Very very few world famous exponents of popular music have a formal musical education.
> Very very few world famous exponents of popular music have a formal musical education.
This is just false. If you start to dig into this a little bit, you will easily find connections between almost all famous musicians, and universities. If they didn't have formal education themselves, they often had private lessons from someone with a degree. Or someone in the band had a degree etc. Or in the case of the beatles, the "producer" just happened to be a trained composer who was giving a lot of "suggestions".
Other examples: punk band green day songwriter billie joe had 15 years of lessons with a jazz guitarist with a university degree. Bluegrass guitarist tony rice had private theory lessons with a berklee graduate. etc etc.
It's part of the marketing to downplay the theory and knowledge involved, people want to relate to musicians, and not feel like their being outsmarted, or manipulated by "some formula".
Are you from the industry? I am, with forty years of experience under my belt. Believe me, there is no correlation between success and formal musical education.
I think their point is more that in many cases, you can trace the chain of direct influence to someone with formal training, even if the musicians themselves don't have it.
Obviously, there are also plenty of artists who only have this influence indirectly, through other artists that inspire them. Or in the case of hip hop and electronic, through sampling. So I think their point was overstated.
> When jazz music appeared, there were no conservatories or theory for it. The first jazz conservatories emerged fifty years later.
Yes, to study the tropes and patterns of theory applied by the great jazz musicians, who certainly knew what they were doing with theory, even if "the theory of jazz" didn't exist. You don't have to know "jazz theory" in order to use theory to create a new genre of music that became known as "jazz". There were a community of performing musicians who had at least some formal theory knowledge (if not to a rigorous Berklee standard), who shared ideas and patterns and tropes, which eventually became a recognised genre, and later on an academic field of study.
It's funny, because out of all the niche subgenres of music out there today, jazz is almost certainly one of the most "theory influenced" genres of the last century.
Yeah it's not true at all, just look at russell's lydian chromatic concept for example, and how much new ideas for jazz and improvisation that it spawned. Theory does not only come after practice. Oh how I wish people would stop venting their fantasies of the god gift whenever the subject of music comes up
> To improvise you first of all require musical talent on both harmonic and rhythmic dimensions
I mean, you need ability to keep rhythm and play notes. But beyond that, you absolutely can get away with theory only with basically zero special talent. You wont become world famous, but you will be able to match what the rest of group is playing.
> even what we know today as "classical music" was often improvised in the past; many great composers were also great improvisers.
Also going back to original comment, you seem to put theory and improvisation into some kind of dichotomy. But, both being great composer and great improviser are heavily facilitated by understanding theory.