A constraint-based approach to grouping in language and music

Background in music psychology and music computation. In Lerdahl and Jackendoff’s Generative Theory of Tonal Music (1983), the authors try to formalize cognitive processes seen in music, referring to Chomskyan (generative) linguistics. Among other processes found in musical cognition (such as harmonic tension and detecting rhythmic patterns), Lerdahl and Jackendoff describe the process of grouping single pitch-events into larger scale units. They propose a rule-based system involving two kinds of rules: well-formedness rules and preference rules. A rule-based computational model of rhythmic pattern recognition which was partly based on Lerdahl and Jackendoff’s theory was developed by Temperley (2001).