Paul Richard Pedersen (born August 28, 1935) is a Canadian composer, arts administrator, and music educator.
[1] Born in Camrose, Alberta, Pedersen entered the University of Saskatchewan in 1953 where he earned a Bachelor of Arts in music in 1957.
He matriculated to the University of Toronto (UT) where he studied composition with John Weinzweig; receiving a Master of Music in 1961.
He later returned to the UT to pursue doctoral studies in musicology which focused on research in acoustic and musical psychology.
Part of his research was published in the Winter 1965 edition of the Journal of Music Theory in an article entitled The mel scale.