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I am trying my best to learn all of this....wow, so much to learn!  I'm sure I have been going about this in a wrong order but I can't start over now I guess.  So here is my question for everyone...as I'm looking at all the different types of cheeses and all the different makes, I'm starting to see that there are catagories of the cheeses (lactic, washed curd, ect.)  and then the smaller more precise recipe from those catagories.  So, can a person improvise the cheese recipes as far as the more precise directions and end up ok?  In other words could you make a lactic acid cheese but deviate from the directions of adding Geo and Pc....and add a blue cheese slurry?  Or could you make a gouda type but add b linens during the make.....  Sorry if these seem like crazy questions but I don't really want to follow exact recipes for years only to find I have no idea what I'm actually doing.....Thanks ahead for all the help!

IMHO you should try your best to follow recipes and advice from the Forum and make known cheeses like a Gouda. Once you know how to make a great Gouda every time, then you can start to experiment. I do Blue Goudas for example, but I made a lot of "normal" Goudas first. If you start out doing experimental cheeses you will have a much harder time developing consistent problem solving techniques.

Why do you think you have been going about this in the wrong order?

Well....I have tried lots of recipes first and have been very happy with my cheese....however, I teach music as well and I know  a lot of people can learn to play a song but to be able to play music and understand what and why you are doing certain things makes you into a musician.  I want to understand why I'm doing certain things in the recipe and what it will accomplish if I change it.  Not just follow a recipe and have no clue what I did or how I ended up with this great little cheese.  For example years ago I started making chevre but had no earthly idea what happening to the milk....never even heard of Ph and floc time.  However, I had great cheeses.....  Now that I have more understanding from this forum it has naturally led me to wonder what is actually happening to the cheeses during the make and how can I change them ect...  I hope this helps to explain....

Read all the archives, especially posts from the regulars here. And if you have questions, just post, and we'll answer. As for an overview in one place, Marc Druart's new book does a decent job with some of the more technical nuances (still doesn't answer all the whys). Paul's book is also OK, but again, has some holes and you will often read more clear answers here.

If you want to go for the ultra technical, there are good books out there for that, too.

If you want a concise 10-15 min spiel of my condensed version of cheesemaking tradeoffs and dynamics/controls, give me a call.

Obviously only creativity will bring upon new and exciting cheese.  It's a lot like music; some people play their own songs in a party, other do covers of other artists.

As with music, cheese too has its scientific reasoning.  Some notes or scales cannot work together. Or, try taking 7 minutes of Beethoven symphony #9 and working it into Bossa Nova rhythm pattern. It's clearly not going to work.  Maybe ...maybe an experienced talented musician can make it work by understanding the theories behind the mismatch of the two, tackle them and tie it together. But what is this? Bossa Nova? Symphony? Some new hybrid? Is it Roman-Germanic or Brazilian? What instrument is this played on and at what occasion would you listen to this? In a philharmonic concert hall or that quirky radio station? Cheese is the same.  You having an idea of what you want to achieve is a given, but making sure it works together is a whole other story. Lactic cheese can often be too acidic for P.Roqueforti to grow in its inside. Mozzarella is a terrible candidate for washing, and goats' cheese would make horrendous Parmesan. Besides, different bacteria starts and stops working in different conditions of moisture, temperature, salinity and acidity, so you really need to be a maestro  ...but, you can wash a Camembert (huh... Pont-l'Évêque). And you can make a Drunken Goat out of Cow's milk, or add proprionic bacteria to a Tomme, or make a Morbier style cheese but age it in cold pine boxes as if it was Tallegio. Pav (Linuxboy) and I are working on some experimental batches of cheese that combine the suppleness of Reblochon, the stench of Limburger and the sweet nutty flavor of Emmentaler. I am embarking on a semi-lactic 60-day brie (like Brie de Melun) that will have sweet-sour starter bacteria that isn't even made for cheese (Like Delice de Cremier). The possibilities are endless and we haven't even gotten to cheese that is made in a standard way but their affinage makes all the difference in the world.

So in short, yes, it is possible but you really need to figure out what you are doing and why.

Two advices on how to approach this:
1. Eat a lot of cheese. Go to your local fromagerie and try exciting cheese. Go by region or cheese type or animal, whatever makes sense to you. Don't just taste them; memorize what you are looking at, the thickness of the rind and its color. The paté characteristics in terms of dryness, fatness, chalkiness, eye formation, how fragile or elastic it is etc. Then go deep into the taste and try to figure out how did they get to that and whether or not you would like to replicate any of the characteristics of this cheese in any of your future cheeses.
2. Make some sense of what you are eating / making, by learning the history behind the different types of cheese you want to combine.  Again, this is like music; The circumstances in which Giuseppe Verdi wrote his Requiem are very different than those in which Carlos Santana wrote Oye Como Va. Yet, knowing these circumstances help you "feel" the music, romanticize it, get it right, understand how to develop it better in the same spirit -should you choose to improvise. Doesn't this opens a whole world of common sense to you when you are doing it?  Now think of it as cheese. For example, the alpine cheeses are the result of co-ops that were created on the top of the alps because it was too much work for one farmer to constantly take the cows up the mountain and go down to the plains, losing days of milking just to sell their product and then go up again -in the summer, no less.  So all the farmers bundled together, some were milking, others were making the cheese on the spot and others took care of transporting and selling it. They had hundreds of cows instead of one farmer with 20. That's why the wheels are so large.  This also enabled them to get the milk right into cheesemaking without wait so it was also very fresh and not acidified. They made hard cheese with some elasticity so it could be transported without breaking in carriages that go down the mountains. It was also difficult for them to carry salt up the mountains in quantities which made it an expensive commodity. This is why these cheeses are low in salt.  The cheese would rest in chalets were fire warmed up the room. Low acid milk + Large hard elastic wheel of cheese + low salt + hot humid room + summer mountain graze feed = lots of proprionic bacteria!  Big eyes and sweet nutty flavor.  This is impossible to merry up with the circumstances that brought upon Brie and its white fuzzy Geo/PC rind - the result of very acidic milk; leftovers of yesterday's milking combined with today's milk, made by the farmer's wife for the family or for trade with the neighbors in exchange for produce. Small enough to hide from the taxmen under a pile of hay. When you begin thinking of cheese's history you get to how it came about biologically and why or why not combination can/cannot work.

As for those "standard" cheeses, well, they are a bit like... music standards.  They are predictable, proven and tested. You know exactly what your target is (in terms of what flavor, texture and aroma you expect when you make these).  As you master them, you will obviously get the "feeling" for the different techniques, timing, what bacteria will give you what character at what conditions.  Like Pav (Linuxboy) said above - read up about it and hit the forum. Lots of answers here and there will always be someone ready to help you make one of those exciting hybrid recipes.

Pav, I think we should maybe have a big list of great cheese books somewhere around here.

Yoav, we do. There's a thread someone started where we all posted. Has all the classics, like Pat Fox's books, Kosikowski, etc.  Thanks for such a great post. There's a rhyme and reason to the madness

Thank you all...and thanks Pav for all the info yesterday!
Well, I'm off on another adventure....probably will PM you in a few Pav!    Thanks to all!  God Bless