After all this talk you may be wondering where to use all this information. Simply, now you're equipped to really talk about music, and understand licks and examples with greater depth than before.

When you play a lick you can now understand what makes that particular lick work. You can talk about the scale being used, and what notes out of that scale are used most frequently. From that information you can start to devise your own rules for playing what you like. If your favorite guitar player played a D in his solo over a C-minor chord and you absolutely loved that note, figure out how that note relates to the chord below it. Once you've figured out that D is two notes away from the root of the C-minor chord, you can apply that principal to other songs and other chords. You can use seconds over chords, for example. Knowing theory allows you to figure out what you played, and how to repeat it when you want to. No more accidental discoveries that you can't repeat. Music theory can be dry and boring, but if you apply it to your own music and use it to your benefit, it will have meaning to you and it will be very interesting!