[HN Gopher] Quantum Computer Music ___________________________________________________________________ Quantum Computer Music Author : e12e Score : 34 points Date : 2023-12-24 05:14 UTC (1 days ago) (HTM) web link (www.ctm-festival.de) (TXT) w3m dump (www.ctm-festival.de) | Rochus wrote: | " _If you are interested in a more in-depth introduction to the | emerging field of Quantum Computer Music, I recommend the book, | Quantum Computer Music: Foundations, Methods and Advanced | Concepts, published by Springer in 2022._ " | https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-031-13909-3 | | By the end of the day just another source of (quasi) random | numbers which are somehow interpreted as music, isn't it? | CrypticShift wrote: | > random numbers which are somehow interpreted as music | | My initial reaction was similar. Nonetheless, I'm making an | effort to embrace the diversity of what music can mean to | different individuals. My only question to them is: are you | genuinely moved by the music itself or do you "merely" | intellectualize it? | | That being said, is this emerging field of Quantum Computer | Music solely focused on generating random numbers? I must admit | I only glanced through the article, so I wouldn't assert this | definitively. | Rochus wrote: | > _I 'm making an effort to embrace the diversity of what | music can mean to different individuals..._ | | I'm a trained musician myself (see e.g. http://rochus- | keller.ch/?p=1221) and I have also been exploring algorithmic | composition for many years. There is no issue with diversity | of what music can mean. | | The issue is from my point of view, that a lot of effort is | spent with different algorithmic concepts, but in the end, | any area of the generated number range is arbitrarily mapped | to MIDI notes. You can e.g. see that with the output of | cellular automata (which are also used in the referenced | book), where any random strip of the overall image is | interpreted as notes. You could just as well have used a | quasi-random generator. The use of cellular automata | therefore brought no added value. | | > _is this emerging field of Quantum Computer Music solely | focused on generating random numbers?_ | | Whenever a new idea or technology became popular, a few | resourceful people started making music with it. Now it's | quantum computers. Over the years, many dissertations have | been written that have not really brought any progress. I | give transformer DNN a good chance, but good results are | likely to be a few years away. | sporkl wrote: | a lot of it does end up being that kind of thing, but not all. | some of it's kind of like how quantum math has been used to | model (if I remember correctly) seismology or weather, and some | of it's about sonifying the entire quantum state, including | superpositions (assuming no error/noise, the random part of | quantum doesn't happen until measurement, where superpositions | are destroyed) | Rochus wrote: | > _some of it's kind of like how quantum math has been used | to model (if I remember correctly) seismology or weather, and | some of it's about sonifying the entire quantum state, | including superpositions_ | | Well, the field of quantum computing is definitely important | and very promising, but it has as little to do with music | like the proportions in the movements of celestial bodies. | gexaha wrote: | there also exist a more scientific term for such practice - | "sonification" | Rochus wrote: | > _a more scientific term for such practice - "sonification"_ | | Sonification is a very useful concept, e.g. to make the blood | flow audible in medical ultrasound. But this is not the same | as algorithmic composition, which is the topic here. | sporkl wrote: | I co-authored a paper that was presented at the 2nd symposium | mentioned in this article, and I've read the textbook mentioned | in the article, happy to try to answer any questions | | The paper we wrote isn't on airxiv yet but can be read here: | https://github.com/sporkl/superposition-rhythms/blob/main/is... | sandworm101 wrote: | How close to absolute zero does the audience need to be to hear | the music? | sporkl wrote: | I couldn't make in in-person, but from what I heard the | audience was pretty cool | dist-epoch wrote: | Quite cool idea. | | Two questions: | | Would you say you approach this more from the educational side, | or from the artistic one? | | What about quantum circuits, and more complex gates (Hammond, | ...). Do you think about "playing" a simple quantum circuit, | hearing how the quantum state changes as it flows through the | gates from start to end? | sporkl wrote: | Thanks! We were originally thinking of approaching things | more from the educational side, but it's kind of a hard point | to make without experimental evidence, which we don't have. | | As far as playing a quantum circuit through the end, that's | what our python and max implementations do! Should work with | any gate; but because it's simulation-based, there's a limit | to the number of qubits. We're also working on a follow-up | about sonifying arbitrary hamiltonians. | jancsika wrote: | It's too bad that technology in music refers to the means and not | the ends. | | E.g., pastiche techniques in Mahler, continually developing | variations in Brahms. Even octatonicism in early Messiaen, or a | 70s DJ moving his hand back and forth on a spinning vinyl and | rhyming to its rhythm. | | These are all things you can hear in the music that sound | qualitatively different than music written without those | techniques. | | In the last excerpt from the article, I hear an upward portamento | (smooth rising frequency ramp). But it's the same kind of | portamento as one would get from classical digital | synthesis/resynthesis, or even analog synthesis. It may | technically be produced by a quantum computer, but it's not a | "quantum portamento" in any musically significant sense. | | However, maybe such a thing is possible. For example, one can | adjust the partials in the 2nd pitch of a melody in such a way | that the listener cannot easily tell whether that 2nd pitch is | higher or lower than the first. One could then play a portamento | extending from the 1st to 2nd pitch, and the direction of the | portamento would reveal whether that 2nd pitch was indeed higher | or lower. So in a way, "measuring" the interval distance with the | portamento affects whether that 2nd pitch was higher or lower. :) | asah wrote: | lol, more like a (quantum) of (computer music) ! | Podgajski wrote: | Hey! That's just as dystopian as I thought it would sound! | florilegiumson wrote: | The author is right that there is nothing new about making music | with AI. However, earlier uses of AI were for symbol | manipulation, whereas currently AI has the potential to be a new | kind of sound synthesis method. I've heard demos where sounds | come from these interstitial regions of latent space and so it | sounds like I'm listening to two things at once. I wonder if | quantum computers will have the ability to do something similarly | freaky. | | It's really cool to use quantum computers to compose music, but | I'd love to see them used for things other than control of | "frequency modulation (FM), additive synthesis, and granular | synthesis." ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2023-12-25 23:00 UTC)