Since Lerdahl and Jackendoff’s work,many psychologists have tried
experimentally to validate certain “rules”put forward in the GTTM,and
in particular the famous rules of grouping structures.A pioneering effort
in this regard is Irène Deliège’s beautiful work (see below).The con-
nection between the GTTM and gestalt theory is not without importance
when one realizes that the perspective of the GTTM is based on at least
three postulates that lie at the heart of the first major theory of scien-
tific psychology,proposed by Köhler,Gottschaldt,Guillaume,and Lewin
(see,for example,Köhler,1929).These three postulates have important
consequences for any psychology that is inspired by them and especially
our conception of the human being.1.Forms are innate and their rules function from birth.
2.Forms are universal,independent of culture and milieu.
3.Forms are subject to a general principle of isomorphism such that
rules of physical form,rules of physiological form,rules of psychological
form,and rules of sociological form correspond with each other.However,as applied to cognitive theories of language and music,the pos-
tulates take the following form.
First,specific capacities,or competences,for language on the one hand
and for music on the other are describable in terms of grammars;that is,
systems capable of generating linguistic or musical sequences indepen-
dent of learning.In terms of our concerns,musical competences con-
stitute a set of aptitudes or innate capacities the proper functioning of
which depends very little on particular conditions of concrete training
during childhood and adulthood.Is this a return to the psychology of the
musical gift?
Second,there are musical and linguistic universals that characterize
human thought.They are expressed by basic rules that constitute a core
grammar common to all languages and to all musical systems.These basic
rules produce the sequence types or forms that we find everywhere in
all cultures.Regarding music,analysis of diverse musical grammars
should gradually allow better understanding of what these universal ele-
mentary forms are,whose structures are attributable to psychological
systems that produce them,and that are presumably common to all
human beings.
Finally,these grammatical systems,to the extent that they are formal-
izations of psychological competencies,should also have their equivalent
in the internal functioning of the brain,which means that the compe-
tencies correspond to defined and independent neuronal systems.In
music,diverse hypotheses have been developed,such as those concern-
ing modular neural systems.450 Michel Imberty