Diatribe Writing music-composition programs has been an extremely valuable exercise in understanding what makes music work. When writing music oneself, one relies to a large extent on unconscious intuition. Instead the usual tact is to modify ones sense of aesthetics to match the results, which are usually lacking. As a result, we learn nothing about music or ourselves from the experience. The pursuit of such an experimental method has made me realize that the bulk of traditional and contemporary music theory is severely lacking.
Music theory is in general overwhelming obsessed with aspects of pitch.
This is true of modern atonal theory and Schenkerian analysis as well as more traditional theory. Simply contrast the number of works on the subject of harmony with the number on the subject of rhythm. In reality, pitch is a very subordinate aspect of music. One can write interesting music in a purely percussive idiom. One cannot write interesting music without rhythm or form.