Recursion may have an important place in cognitive processes. Recursive theoretical models may also seduce the theorist to false abstractions and pseudo-explanations. This is observed in some versions of musical and linguistic formalism, which share a common rationalist-idealist background; paradigmatically, in Chomsky’s controversial Minimalism. It is also observed in the reductive practices of Riemann’s Musikalische Logik (1873) and Schenker’s Der freie Satz (1935). More extensively I will discuss Lerdahl en Jackendoff’s attempt to transform music theory into a theory of musical perception (A Generative Theory of Tonal Music, 1983). They do so with the help of the formal method and psychological premises of Generative Grammar.