Philosophically, that is an interesting area - of theory as practice. That is, I would posit that my theoretical knowledge of songs increases as I learn the song, even when I "murder" it, which, if I were hauled into court each time that happened with my playing, I would have several life sentences by now.
Humility aside, I have to say I know something that I didn't know before I learned (learned de notes) Jimi's Red House.
And the other day when I started learning Come On (Let the Good Times Roll) I was able to hear in the lead, so much that was familiar, or as some might say, so much that is also in Red House. In a way that is kind of like learning theory, in that I learned something that I was later able to represent (in my mind) and hold up to something else for comparison, and say, oh, I see (on an abstract level) what is going on (in the sense that I saw repetition).
ON a larger theoretical scale, I would say that the repetitions I heard (in Jimi's playing, not in the notes) were not like mechanical repetitions, but rather, (philosophy-poetry here) more like Deleuze's view of repetition of difference.
What?
Yes, like Monet's water lilies, or like the Carnival that repeats each year, each repetition is not of the same, but of some internal difference that repeats itself in creative ways. Or each time Purple Haze is played well.
OK, that may be a bit poetic to be philosophy, but I think Whitehead gets at the same thing (if you are into mathematics and prehensions) in that each process in the universe is like a mind-body, or an awareness-position, or more simply, a feeling. And this process or perspective can repeat itself in the same way, or produce creative variations. Thankfully, the molecular structure of my guitar is mostly the first kind, repeating itself in such as way that it doesn't fly apart while I am playing. However, the process of playing improvisationally, or even playing the song the same while understanding the essential thing about the song that makes it alive, demonstrates the latter, or the process retaining something of an identity yet finding novel ways of expressing itself. (If we can talk about a song expressing itself ).
My point being, that as we enter into the process (learn a song) or to the degree we enter into the process and "get it", then we are being theoretical, in that we can apply the concept (the song) to other things, concepts, songs, or in a more deeply theoretical stance, deepening the concept itself (playing the song better than the original writer/player).
Or heck, we can just play the song to someone and hope they love us, a sneaky application guitar players have learned over the centuries. ha ha.
RC
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