[mtalantikite]

Yeah absolutely, I'm not arguing against theory by any means. I'm happy I know it, but often times I wish my early music teachers spent more time with me on following my ears than whatever it was they were trying to do. It wasn't until I was an adult that I found someone that really cared about that.

But also... what's John Lee Hooker's secret of the guitar??? Don't hold out on us!

[wyclif]

It's supposed to be transmitted orally, like a story from Homer or something, so I won't copy and paste it here, but you can find it easily enough by searching. Basically, without quoting it word-for-word, it's old bluesman advice from the "diddly-bow" era that when starting out on guitar, string it with one string only and play it until you can provoke emotion from an audience with one string. When you can do that, add another, repeat the cycle, add another string, until all six strings are on the guitar.

[mtalantikite]

Oh I get it, I practice Vajrayana Buddhism and a lot of the tradition is still transmitted orally and in person.

But the gist of that method actually sounds a lot like how my music teacher approaches things, he won't let you move on in your improvisations on a new tune until you can get a feeling from playing just half and whole notes on the changes. His teacher was Lennie Tristano so he's very driven by developing that ear instinct.