A djembe is played with rhythm and tone, but the rhythm itself doesn't have any tone color. Rhythm is time. Notes are wavelength, and in Western music we use a 12 note system to denote them, and musical theory is a shorthand used to denote the complex mathematical intervals at work in it. It's fascinating stuff, and if you're interested in learning more about it there's a great BBC series available on YouTube that describes what's happening in Western musical theory: How Music Works ▶ this video Suggesting that students don't need to learn basic music theory is kind of ridiculous. Can the human ears find the tonic/dominant/sub-dominant interval relationships on their own? Of course. That's part of the reason we find them so pleasing. You don't need music theory to hear. You need it to communicate with other musicians. Music is a group activity. It's an ongoing conversation in our culture. If you want to participate in the musical traditions of our society, you need to be able talk to other musicians. This means different things for different traditions, but the amount of learning needed to get your feet under you in music is less than learning how how to play most video games or even the most basic syntax of a programming language. Can we teach it better? Absolutely. But we still need to teach it.
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