The ‘practical’ or ‘theoretical’ path?

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Learning to play music (like anything else) consists of both a practical part as well as a theoretical part. The practical path helps develop your physical ability to play an instrument while the theoretical path helps develop your knowledge about music and the instrument. Both are important.

‘Theoretically’ you can simply learn the ‘theoretical’ information as this would allow you to teach theory. You don’t ever really need to play an instrument as ‘theory’ is a skill in itself (as is teaching). That being said, most if not all musicians actually want to play an instrument and having the ability to play an instrument (at any level of ability) will definitely add to your interest in learning theory.

The reverse is also true as you can learn to play the instrument without the theoretical knowledge however your progress will be decreased as ‘no theoretical knowledge’ will inhibit your ability to communicate with other musicians and will simply make it that much more difficult to progress since it would be comparable to building a house without blueprints or tools.