Nikki Dibben

Professor in Music 

I investigate music listening and what that engagement means for how people think about and make sense of themselves and the world. For more information on my activities as a teacher, researcher and leader at the University of Sheffield, see my institutional webpage. A few of my current projects are listed below.

Understanding the social impacts of music-making

I'm working with charity Fundasidoc and Dr Julian Cespedes and colleagues at the University of Icesi, Colombia, to help understand the impacts of music and other cultural interventions on the lives of young people and their families.

Music and Environmentalism

In previous musical analyses of popular music I identified musical means by which human-nature relationships are constructed. In this current project I'm working with  Dr Jake Downs, University of Oxford, and musician Erland Cooper, to understand the impacts of musical engagement on audiences' biospheric values.

Music in XR

I'm using analysis of musical experiences in AR, VR, MR platforms to understand impacts of XR technologies on music making and listening and how these differ from affordances of existing forms of recorded music.

AI Music Creation: MIMA and the Datasounds network

We're working with musicians Bishi, Ilā Kamalgharan and Coda to develop our  assistive music compositional platform, AMI, with the needs of musicians in mind. Projects include AI music generation, composing across time spans for sonic branding, and voice conversion for trans singers.