Ok so I am going to interject here pointed at no one in particularม because I see a lot of pedantic quote wars going nowhere.
I am just going to speak my experience. I grew up in a household of musicians. My mother and father were amateur vocalists and my sisters all sang in school choirs, as well as studied various instruments in school and after.
Two of my sisters went on to semi - professional careers as vocalists.
Of all the musicians in the family only two of us, myself and my oldest sister were writers.
My mother wrote poetry. Not music. But she could sing anything you put in front of her that was in her range. And she did so for a good 50 plus years in a local vocal group, until her vocal cords gave out.
But I was the only one who grew up with aspirations to be a professional musician. And in this pursuit, I also had aspirations to be a composer.
So in this experience at music school, again I was around musicians of all kinds. I also took music theory, played in the orchestra, learned to read music, music theory, etc.
And then this along with a fairly extensive career as a drummer in bands my whole life, I can make the simple observation.
Some musicians write. Some don’t. Some that write are naturally great at it. And it in no way has any connection whatever to their understanding of music theory.
Some musicians completely suck at writing.
And no theory will ever help them. Ever.
As for professional classical performers. Again the same division and graduating differences in writing skills apply.
Music theory classes are quite often geared towards showing you know the theory by demonstrating you can compose or at least arrange.
This is purely academic. But once you get past those courses, you move to your concentration.
And unless you are planning to compose or arrange, you pretty much leave that all behind.
You are never expected to write. And theory does not give you the gift of writing music any more than learning the alphabet and grammar will give you the skills to write stories.
It just isn’t so.
And anyone can be forced to write just to pass a glass and get a grade in theory.
And this is exactly how some musicians view it. They force out some composition much to their lament, just to get a grade.
And they never look back.
They move on to their concentration and with any luck get a seat in the local symphony or move to a city center and get work in recording or both.
Many of them, when you bring up writing at all, they roll their eyes with annoyance at the thought.
They are happy reading music for a living.
There isn’t enough time to analyze a score you are playing. That’s the job of the conductor. Many musicians this level could talk theory. But that was all back in school. It is what they had to do to get here.
They don’t think about that anymore unless in some rare case it might be interesting or necessary. Some of that might be secod nature at this point yes. But the job is to read the page and interpret it. End of story. That it might modulate keys or use unconventional melodic or chord movement or even be atonal. It really is insignificant. At some point, all music theory becomes the fact that there are 12 notes in the western scale. The number of sharps or flats on the cleff give you the starting key and you go.
Rehearsal are long, intense and the focus is on performing your part within the chamber group and on getting your part right and learning the conductor’s interpretation and listing to the rest of the musicians.
Then you go home to your life.
Those in the orchestra only write or care to at all if they are writers at heart.
Some of them get paid to play classical and then work in jazz groups and write other kinds of music. Like, God forbid, Rock!
And within all this there are times when these two worlds collide like what happened with Rick Wakeman and Yes.
He was a pianist/composer who brought all of his music theory and passion for classical music to the band, with the added skill of being a brilliant writer.
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–icon) to find some similar threads. There are dozen of tutotial recommendations and explicite tips.