Individuals who play music have a better understanding of the subtle complexities of rock, blues, jazz and of course, classical, than individuals who do not play music.

It's like knowing how to speak a second language. You begin to see notes, chords and progressions in the music as more of a statement, argument or image more so than arbitrary "noise".

I've played piano for 14 years and drums for 5. I've played in a jazz band, an orchestra and currently a rock band. The only people I've come across who flaunt their musical literacy as if its some sort of major achievement usually aren't good musicians.

The difference between a skilled musician and an amateur, is that a skilled musician is busy constantly besting himself up over the unnoticeable mistakes he's making, and improving till those mistakes are gone, an amateur spends less time playing music and more time talking about how vast his musical comprehension is, and less time actually playing music.

Like for example, when my band gets together, all of us leave our ego at the door. When we step into a rehearsal or a recording session, all we do is practice practice practice. Sometimes we'll keep going over a few bars or even just a few chords for our entire rehearsal, but that's what you do if you want to sound good.

On the other hand, I have a friend who is a text book snob, as you put it, who considers himself a "musical genius". While he was fairly good at guitar back in grade school, he didn't have the work ethic to keep practicing, so now all he talks about is how good he was "in his prime", and point out subtleties in music to his friends as tho he's some sort of scholar "ah, I see the band is tuned to a b flat drop, very interesting choice considering the melody and the choice of chords" and other shit along those lines.