I agree that READING music is not necessary, unless you want to play classical music. I can barely read music. But I know my music theory up and down and inside out. It is fascinating stuff. Every culture has their own theory but it all ties together into a grand music theory. For example, blues uses the pentatonic scales to play melodies, but they use the dominant scales to make chords. This is the hallmark of Blues is playing a different scale for lead than the rhythm. Also, in blues if they are playing the minor pentatonic they bend the 4th note up to a fifth, and if they are playing the major pentatonic scale they will bend the 2nd up to a 3rd. This is in rock music also. A lot of middle eastern music uses modes based off of the harmonic minor scale. Jazz theory is very advanced theory and they make use of so many scales all the time for each chord. It is really fascinating how to come up with the blues sound, and then the jazz sound, then the Spanish sound, then the Indian sound, all using the same chord progressions. This is theory. Being able to read music notation is not theory, although it is what they teach in school. People that are trained just to read written music are quite limited. They can't improvise, they can only play what is written.
A basic chord is built off of every other note in the scale. 1, 3, 5 is a basic triad. So in the key of C it would be C, E, G. The next one you can add is the 7. This is called a 7th chord. 1, 3, 5, 7 or C, E, G, B. Then you can add a 9th (since 8=1 then 9=2 but an octave higher). So you will have a C, E, G, B, D. If you are using a dominant scale (like they do in blues and rock often) you have a dominant 7th chord and a dominant 9th chord. It is fun to come up with chords like these for every scale you learn.
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