"You know all the words
And you sung all the notes
But you never quite learned the song . . . " (Incredible String Band)

To understand how music 'works', it makes the task very much easier if you can follow and use the simple language in which it is expressed. This is not hard. Not to do so is a bit like saying that you want to act in dramas but don't want to go to the bother of learning to read first. Or be a mathematician solving the problems of the universe but think it beneath you to learn how to do long division first. Music literacy (numeracy?) is just a skill. If you have it you are not automatically a 'better' musician. But it helps you become one. And it enables anyone trying to advise you to do so in more precise terms.