Fred Lerdahl

Fred Lerdahl is an American composer and music theorist known for developing ideas about how musical coherence and understanding work. He explores how listeners and performers perceive, process, and anticipate musical structures, blending cognitive psychology with music theory. His work helps explain why certain patterns in music feel intuitive or satisfying. Lerdahl’s theories guide composers and analysts in creating and interpreting music that aligns with natural human perception of musical flow and tension, contributing significantly to the understanding of the relationship between musical structure and experience.