okay, theory...now what is that exactly?

you really could be burned at the stake for writing a tri-tone (b5 or #4)

That's just a legend - there's no evidence at all to support it. In fact, there's plenty of proof to the contrary: every piece of music with a flat in it owes a debt to the tritone*.

Back in the middle ages we had no sharps or flats, so all music was written using the seven natural notes. Any time there was a melodic leap from F to B (or vice-versa) you had a tritone, and that was difficult to sing. Some singers fudged it to make it easier, hitting Bb instead of B.

Composers noticed this, of course. Theory being what it is - a set of labels - they labeled performances with B natural as "musica recta" (right music) and performances with Bb as "musica ficta" (false music). Over the course of a couple of centuries they came up with terms for the real B note... B quadratum (square B) and the "false" note, B rotundum (round B).

Writing out those Latin phrases took time, so they shortened it to symbols. B rotundum was written a rounded B - which evolved into our flat symbol . And a lot of music historians speculate that our natural symbol came from a penmanship error... the square B was written with a boxlike head, and they think an errant downstroke made it too long, resulting in the natural symbol we still use.

So the tritone was never outlawed or prohibited in any way - in fact, it was commonly used. But music theorists dating back to at least the 11th century insisted it be treated with caution.

*everything with sharps owes a debt to the tritone too, but the history isn't as direct.

you really could be burned at the stake for writing a tri-tone (b5 or #4)

That's just a legend - there's no evidence at all to support it.

That's true. I mean it's true that it's a legend. :D
Its use in early church music was often met with disapproval, though, by some over-zealous abbots who trusted the theorists more than their composers and sometimes insisted on the removal of all tritones. At one point they relented on one of the tritones used harmonically. I can't remember whether it was the augmented 4th or the diminished 5th, (I'm recalling from the Oxford Companion to Music of 30 years ago!!) but it meant (for example) you could have B in the lower part with F above it but not the inversion with F in the lower part and B above it. Some resourceful composers found a clever way round it. They would write in the approved way in order to pass the church 'inspection' but then have the lower part sung by children of the choir, who would automatically sing it an octave higher, and the diminished 5ths would come out as augmented 4ths.
Of course, that may be a legend too :D

Ok, so after siffting through about 20 long and imformative responses, ive come to the simple conclusion that music theory is basically the science of music. How it works, why it works, and how to build upon it. It would be good to know in order to progress, memorize, and learn how to play more "correct" music. I guess the next question would obviously be, Where do I start??? I checked out the two links provided to Amazon, and I guess that leads me to believe that there are pages and pages of literature on this subject, and as someone who has no experience whatsoever in this matter, I would like your imput on what has been proven to work.

you really could be burned at the stake for writing a tri-tone (b5 or #4)

That's just a legend - there's no evidence at all to support it. In fact, there's plenty of proof to the contrary: every piece of music with a flat in it owes a debt to the tritone*.<...>

That goes to show you, you can't believe everything your school band director told you ;)

Notes

Ok, so after siffting through about 20 long and imformative responses, ive come to the simple conclusion that music theory is basically the science of music. How it works, why it works, and how to build upon it. It would be good to know in order to progress, memorize, and learn how to play more "correct" music. I guess the next question would obviously be, Where do I start??? I checked out the two links provided to Amazon, and I guess that leads me to believe that there are pages and pages of literature on this subject, and as someone who has no experience whatsoever in this matter, I would like your imput on what has been proven to work.

Music theory is NOT the science of music -- it lacks significant theoretical content about WHY music works -- that is the hypothesis part which would address human cognitive and physiological perceptions and processsing of music. Knowing and understanding that would be a major coup! Music theory is a theory in the restricted sense of being a standardized collection of guidelines. Most of those guidelines of harmony and rhythm were created heuristically. Much of the rest deals with standards of syntax. Special kudos to Tom (Noteboat): His contributions to this thread are very good and carefully written.

But ... it is very useful, even if contrived in some respects.

all the following is easier if you read music at least a little bit, or have a keyboard to reference(or at least can picture one in your head.

guitar theory 101, in approximate order:
learn a few chords and songs to get you started, so you have something to play while you learn.

learn the major scale and learn how chords are constructed off the major scale. (basically, going up, you play every other white key until you have 3 to form a chord). for now, just learn the triads (major, minor, diminished chords), and the 7ths. learn further extensions as you go, but for now, just understand how they're formed.

understand basic chord progressions. I-IV-V, I-vi-IV-V, ii-V-I etc. figure out what progressions the songs you play are.

do the same with the minor scale

learn chord inversions and suspensions, power chords, chord fragments. they're everywhere. learn how to play a chord anywhere on the neck.

learn the major and minor pentatonic. learn the blues scale.

learn how those extensions and complicated chords (9ths, 11ths, b5s, etc) are formed. learn to play a few so you know what they sound like.

learn modes, ''exotic'' scales, whole tone scales, chromatic scales

learn the circle of 5ths. this is more useful if you're reading and playing classical or jazz than if you're just rocking out, but it's useful to some degree.

i forgot to add: you also want to get an understanding of rhythm. straight rhythms, triple feels, blues, swing, syncopation, polyrhythms, odd meters.

also, i'd say that theory is less the science of music than it is the spelling, grammar, and syntax of music. an understanding of it can clear up what the squiggles on your paper or screen mean, and can help you create sentences that can be understood, but it won't make you a great writer or musician. and you can break the rules and still come up with great literature or music. e.e. cummings, igor stravinsky, and kurt cobain all broke the rules and made works of art. unlike in physics, where the rules are pretty much set in a given framework. i.e. if you attach an anvil to a pelican, you run into problems.

that's a bad analogy. most advances in physics, at least in the last century, had to do with the expansion of frameworks. i still like the image of the anvil and the pelican, though.