The Music of Nature and the Nature of Music

This project aims to transform our understanding of musicality across species by deploying the virtually untapped tools of musicology in birdsong studies. The research expects to map and analyse cultural transmission and variation in pied butcherbird song around Alice Springs. The project significance lies in innovative methodology that brings the humanities into sustained dialogue with the natural sciences and new technologies to ask how pied butcherbirds can revolutionise the way we think about birdsong, human uniqueness, and the origins and core values of music. The project mobilises its research in novel interdisciplinary collaborations, creative outputs benefiting the general public, and contributions to national research collections.