Very good point, u don't understand anything unless u soak it up a little.

But u gotta remember that knowing things like scales, the difference between a major, minor, basic chord structure etc is definitely gonna help when saying to yourself "how's that riff put together?". Ok, once u've got a feel for the music u wanna make, then it's all down to creativity.

I'm talking more about people wanting to start making music, cos anyone can pull up at a keyboard and, if they're creative, create an absolutely killer bass riff or whatever, but the same person with a bit of theory behind them can say "hey, that sounds f@#*n great, and ahh, that's because of x/y/z", and can carry that info on to other parts of the composition, and other tunes.