Experiments in Sound and Music Quantum Computing

Eduardo Reck Miranda, Suchitra T. Basak

Giuseppe Clemente, Arianna Crippa, Karl Jansen +1 more

Jake Chuharski

Eduardo Reck Miranda

Quantum computing technology is developing at a fast pace. The impact of quantum computing on the music industry is inevitable. This paper maps the emerging field of quantum computer music. Quantum computer music investigates, and develops applications and methods to process music using quantum computing technology. The paper begins by contextualising the field. Then, it discusses significant examples of various approaches developed to date to leverage quantum computing to learn, process and generate music. The methods discussed range from rendering music using data from physical quantum mechanical systems and quantum mechanical simulations to computational quantum algorithms to generate music, including quantum AI. The ambition to develop techniques to encode audio quantumly for making sound synthesisers and audio signal processing systems is also discussed.

María Luisa Dalla Chiara, Roberto Giuntini, Eleonora Negri

Alexis Kirke

There have been significant attempts previously to use the equations of quantum mechanics for generating sound, and to sonify simulated quantum processes. For new forms of computation to be utilized in computer music, eventually hardware must be utilized. This has rarely happened with quantum computer music. One reason for this is that it is currently not easy to get access to such hardware. A second is that the hardware available requires some understanding of quantum computing theory. This paper moves forward the process by utilizing two hardware quantum computation systems: IBMQASM v1.1 and a D-Wave 2X. It also introduces the ideas behind the gate-based IBM system, in a way hopefully more accessible to computerliterate readers. This is a presentation of the first hybrid quantum computer algorithm, involving two hardware machines. Although neither of these algorithms explicitly utilize the promised quantum speed-ups, they are a vital first step in introducing QC to the musical field. The article also introduces some key quantum computer algorithms and discusses their possible future contribution to computer music.