Jamal's DVD is good. It's just thgat he plays by feel instead of theory. To me (and Maybe Jamal TOO) theory is unnecessary. You don't haVE TO KNOW THE universal names for chords. I could just as easy name my notes 1 thru 12 instead of all the a,b,c stuff.
All in ALL
Theory
Who needs It?
the Prince
Prince,
Theory is necessary for many things, including composing, copyrighting, playing on other instruments more easily and sharing music with later generations. If Bach, Mozart, Beethoven and others hadn't written their stuff down, we'd have missed out on a huge part of that classical explosion in music history.
Theory is necessary if you really want to make money in music. Every student of music wants to learn from musicians who are tight on their instruments, right? I'm sure Jermaine Griggs can play exceptionally by ear. He's making money, however, because he can communicate his gift using theory.
Theory allows people who don't have a natural musical gift from God to enjoy the pleasures of making music and to train themselves to feel the music. Theory allows people with natural musical gifts, such as yourself, to communicate with others in a language everybody can understand.
Learning the current system of A, B, C, etc., is just as easy as naming the notes 1, 2, 3, etc., except simpler and less confusing. In your proposed system, what would you call the 3rd of Ab for example? Your system breaks down because communicating music requires multiple symbolic representations. Theory is not difficult to learn. You play be ear. Thus, if you were to learn theory, you, and especially you, would find yourself opened up to an exciting new world of creativity and potential.