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== Reception ==
Lerdahl's paper has elicited responses from a number of individuals. Nicholas Cook has written: "The idea that music is a process of communication in which listeners decode structures that composers have encoded... is... based on several disputable assumptions: that people choose to listen grammatically; that there is, or ought to be, an equivalance between compositional and listening grammars; and, most fundamentally, that there is such a thing as musical grammar
<blockquote>...assume(s) that there should be a more or less linear relationship between the manner in which a composer conceives a composition and the manner in which a listener perceives it. ...Lerdahl's aim is to specify the conditions that must be fulfilled if there is to be conformity between 'compositional grammar' and 'listening grammar'. And... he ends up by measuring existing music against the stipulations of his theory, using this as a basis for aesthetic evaluation. The result is to write off not only the Darmstadt avant-garde and minimalism, but also huge swathes of non-Western and popular music. ([[#Cook1999|Cook 1999, 241]])</blockquote>
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<blockquote>Lerdahl relates musical comprehension to the reconstruction of compositional methods. As soon as the listener finds out how a piece is composed, Lerdahl argues, s/he has comprehended the music. In other words: he seems to claim that there is a single, true grasp of music, namely the knowledge of the compositional method. Yet, while knowledge of these methods might be helpful, it is by far not the only means by which the listener can structure the music, and in so doing gains musical comprehension. Rather, musical comprehension can be established through... a process which allows for many different ways to comprehend the same musical piece. Musical comprehension depends on the relation between the (individual) listener and the musical work. Hence, the individual listener has a decisive influence on the way that work is grasped, which in turn results in the existence of many different musical structures by which the music can be grasped and comprehended. ([[#Meelberg2006|Meelberg 2006, 29]])</blockquote>
Morag Josephine Grant has written: "The paradox of Lerdahl's argument... is that while it is perfectly acceptable to adopt the composer's own system when dealing with compositional-technical analysis, it seems equally acceptable to revert to musical thinking of a quite different type when the aural result comes to be analysed." ([[#Grant2001|Grant 2001, 218]]) She continues: "Lerdahl's argument that musical language, like spoken language, is generative in structure excludes the possibility of other, non-hierarchical methods of achieving musical coherence... Lerdahl's concentration on the audibility of the row... blinds or deafens him to the simple fact that the use of the row is itself a constraint, not just on the composer, but in the aid of comprehensibility as well
John Bouz has stated that he: "...finds it concerning that some prominent perception-based theories tend to correlate 'good music' with that which can be used to best showcase the analytical system itself. All too often the application of these theories by theorists is done backwards: the theory is used to determine the value of music (and therefore constrains music), instead of being tested by the music. Lerdahl’s article 'Cognitive Constraints on Compositional Systems' is an example in which this type of dubious inversion occurs
Robert Rowe has written:
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