Diren Darbaz
Pronouns: She/Her
About
My research project
Musicalising Birdsong: Building a Zygonic-Inspired, Expectation-Based Grammer for the Analysis, Transcription, and Composition of Bengalese Finch Vocal SequencesMy PhD research explores the relationship between birdsong and musical structure through a musicological framework. The project focuses on the syntax of Bengalese finch song, asking how sounded syllables and silent rests are organised within song bouts, and how recurring patterns and probabilistic continuations can be interpreted through music analysis.
Rather than treating birdsong mainly as recorded material or as something to imitate, my research examines it as a structured sequence of relationships. I am interested in how repetition, variation, continuation, and branching create patterns that can be modelled, compared, and later used compositionally.
The wider aim is to develop a rule-based analytical framework for reading birdsong through probabilities, continuations, and symbolic categories. This framework is inspired by music-theoretical work on expectation, including Ockelford’s Zygonic Theory, but remains grounded in observed song behaviour rather than claims about avian musical intention.
The project also has a compositional dimension. I am developing ways of translating analytical patterns from birdsong into a creative toolkit, including generative models and original compositions derived from the same structural logic. Although the current work is centred on Bengalese finch song, the broader method is intended to be transferable to other birdsong systems.
Supervisors
My PhD research explores the relationship between birdsong and musical structure through a musicological framework. The project focuses on the syntax of Bengalese finch song, asking how sounded syllables and silent rests are organised within song bouts, and how recurring patterns and probabilistic continuations can be interpreted through music analysis.
Rather than treating birdsong mainly as recorded material or as something to imitate, my research examines it as a structured sequence of relationships. I am interested in how repetition, variation, continuation, and branching create patterns that can be modelled, compared, and later used compositionally.
The wider aim is to develop a rule-based analytical framework for reading birdsong through probabilities, continuations, and symbolic categories. This framework is inspired by music-theoretical work on expectation, including Ockelford’s Zygonic Theory, but remains grounded in observed song behaviour rather than claims about avian musical intention.
The project also has a compositional dimension. I am developing ways of translating analytical patterns from birdsong into a creative toolkit, including generative models and original compositions derived from the same structural logic. Although the current work is centred on Bengalese finch song, the broader method is intended to be transferable to other birdsong systems.