alt Hacker NewsYou have it backward. The conventions were discovered first, music theory came after composers did things. Music's theory describes what we already know works, not how to make things work.
No composer I know thinks in the terms of music theory. They often use a chord progression that music theory describes why it works, but they're not thinking of it in terms of music theory. They're thinking in terms of chord progression, just like the composers of thousands years ago were thinking of their chord progressions the exact style changes and so a thousand years ago they went to thought in terms of modern chord progressions but they were still thinking in similar terms.
> The conventions were discovered first, music theory came after composers did things.
Broadly completely untrue.
If you're trying to say that humans were making music before we had a theory for it - absolutely. But every advanced musical tradition on the planet (including Western, but also Indian, Chinese, etc.) has developed alongside a system of analyzing that music, and for very good reason: It's a lot easier to teach music when you can actually talk about it.
I promise you, every single competent composer and musician on the planet - from every culture - has a fairly firm grasp on music theory, in whatever flavor is relevant to the form of music they practice. Every Indian musician who plays classical Indian music knows their ragas. Every Western musician can navigate the diatonic scale.