It's hard to imagine a musical name more famous than Johann Sebastian Bach. Sure, The Beatles had a really good run. Elvis gained some major recognition. But they'll have to stay famous another 300 years just to catch up.
In bach's time, Counterpoint was the popular musical style. Counterpoint is the process of running 2 or more melodies thru the same song simultaneously. The concept is simple. The execution is incredibly difficult.
Running 3 or 4 melodies thru a single song at the same time is a great way to sound like a train wreck. As a result, a huge series of rules grew up around counterpoint. The rules helped composers guide these multiple melodies thru their songs without those pesky train wrecks.
Then Bach comes along. He learns the rules. He masters them all. Then he begins to knock them down, one after the other. He topples so many rules, the entire landscape of his songs are changed, and in the process he creates something sublime.
But before knocking down any rule, he first understands the need of each melody, the talent of each note. He understands the entire organization of the piece and each note's role.
I know you've already heard of the power of rule breakers. Likely we've all broken a few rules. And this can be a good thing. It shows you have power to understand the bigger picture.
And you keep practicing and working to understand every rule, its place and its purpose. For you know the true genius doesn't knock down a rule just to see what happens. Your true genius emerges when you knock over the rules, already knowing what's on the other side.