There's a book called "Multiple Intelligences" that outlines and celebrates the variety of learning styles that most people subscribe to by the nature of their genetics. Some people are visual learners or auditory or some prefer to read out of an education volume. My point is, there are a variety of ways to commit very important musical concepts to memory and apply them to your respective instruments.

With guitarist especially, we tend to learn by memorizing shapes. You play a D chord this way [and the teacher shows it to you]. But that teaches you NOTHING about music. Find a teacher that know theory so you don't end up like most in that they learn a handful of tunes to play by rote, hit a brick wall, and lose their motivation to play when they realize in their teens that everything they know was learned the wrong way. I only say these things because if you try to communicate an idea to a pianist or a sax player and you're talking about shapes and not notes, you might get kicked.

I have a few students that are talented technicians but are pulling their hair out because they are having to regress to learn the basics of music theory that they should have been taught early on in their music education.

Food for thought...