I spent lots of time during the quarantine on learning music (theory). My consensus is: 99% of what is considered "music theory" is purely interpretative cruft.

I spent lots of time during the quarantine on learning music (theory). My consensus is: 99% of what is considered "music theory" is purely interpretative cruft. 1% of it is based on physics. The only reason why we (westerners) learn the same cruft is because we have been agreeing that this cruft is the least confusing one we have come up with (so far).