PARSING, STRUCTURE, MEMORY AND AFFECT

The Generative Theory of Tonal Music (GTTM) was developed by Fred Lerdahl and Ray Jackendoff (1983) as an approach to the analysis of tonal music based on foundations of human perception. However, in his later work Jackendoff (1987) became more interested in cognitive models and discussed how GTTM could be adapted as a theory of music cognition. Jackendoff s approach assumes that cognition is a capacity which may be reduced to the processing of “mental information”. However, information may abstract away those qualities which are most fundamental to our intuitions about music. The shortcomings of Jackendoff s approach become most apparent when we consider the role of affect in music behavior. © 1995, Taylor & Francis Group, LLC. All rights reserved.