Quantum melodies: the intersection of music and quantum physics

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Physics world. Hello and welcome to
the Physics World Stories podcast.

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I'm Andre g Lester, and in this episode
we're gonna be exploring quantum music.

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You're listening to a recording of the
premiere of Spinnings at the Gutter

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Institute in London on
the 8th of December, 2022.

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This is a network of three
Q1 synth instruments.

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A Q1 synth is a quantum synthesizer
that uses real quantum hardware

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computers to synthesize sounds,

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playing NICU on a Pete Thomas Pao tab and

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Edwardo Miranda.

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We'll hear more about that event at the
Ghetto Institute later in the podcast,

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and we'll hear from Maria Manone,

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a theoretical physicist and composer.

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First,

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here's a quick message from physics
world's Hammus Johnston about this podcast

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sponsor.

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Thank you to Pfeiffer Vacuum
for sponsoring this podcast.

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The company is one of the world's
leading developers, manufacturers,

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ambitious scientific
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Pfeiffer Vacuum has been a globally
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The vacuum chambers provided by the
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Find out more@pfeiffervacuum.com.

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Philip Ball is a science writer and
an editor of the Journal Nature.

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His feature for Physics world entitled,

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can We Use Quantum Computers for Music
is now on the physics world website,

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physics world.com.

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Quantum music is, uh,

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an an idea that is
relatively new. It's, um,

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seems to be something that people have
only really began exploring in the past

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few years when quantum computers
themselves have been publicly available.

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You know,

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there are these small systems with just
a few qubits that anyone can use if they

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register. And so there seemed to
be a small, tiny group really of,

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um,

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musicians and composers and
others who figure that they want

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to use these resources to see what
these resources have to offer for making

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music. So it's really at the very
early, at the embryonic stage,

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no one really knows, uh, where it
might go, whether it might go anywhere,

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whether quantum computing, you know,

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really has something new to offer music
that traditional computers can't do.

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It's all experimental at this stage.
Um, but I think it's, it, it's,

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it seems really exciting, you know,

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I've heard a bit of it and it
was kind of interesting. Um,

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certainly very avron
garde. So, you know, it's,

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it's almost not even a field
yet, it's just an idea.

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Okay. But you've just held up a
very large book all about it. What,

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what's in that book then, if it's
new and we don't really know?

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Yeah. Well, this is just been published,
this book, it was published this, uh,

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this year, and it is, or claims to
be, and I, I'm sure this is true,

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the first book that
talks about, uh, quantum,

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it's simply called Quantum Computer
Music. It's published by Springer. Um,

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so it's really, I think every pretty,

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probably pretty much everyone who is
interested in this idea is in this book.

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Um, and, uh, and it,

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it gives a sort of survey of things
that might be done using quantum

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computing in a musical
context. So the, you know,

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it ranges from using quantum computers
for composing for performing,

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but also quite intriguingly for actually
recording music. Um, you know, we,

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we record it digitally
using classical computing.

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It's possible to think of ways of,
uh, developing a quantum audio.

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Um, what would that, what's the best
way to represent sound, you know,

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as a quantum state and what would
be the point of doing it? Um,

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and it even goes into sort
of thinking about, uh,

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using quantum music for
lighting and, uh, you know,

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for broader aspects of
musical performance. So, um,

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it's a book full of ideas. It's actually
very dense. Uh, there's a lot of,

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a lot of, um, uh, theory in here of
quantum, you know, quantum, uh, uh, uh,

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mechanics, basically theory.

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So it's certainly not for the
lighthearted or for the kind of, you know,

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musician who just wants to dabble in
this. I think they'd be quite daunted. Um,

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but it does for the first time
bring together some of these ideas.

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If you are looking for reading
material on quantum music,

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I can recommend Philip Ball's
feature on the physics world website.

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In that feature, he tells us about an
event he went to all about quantum music.

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Yes. Uh, it was an event that was, um,

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put together by a composer and
computer scientist called Eduardo Rec

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Miranda, um, who is at the
University of Plymouth.

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And I had, um, in a completely different
context in writing about music,

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I had made, uh, contact with
Eduardo some years back. And,

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uh, so he thought I might be
interested in, uh, in this event.

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So he got in touch and said, it's
going on. It was a very small event.

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It was hosted at the Gerta Institute,

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which is a kind of German
cultural institute, um,

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just opposite Imperial College in
London. And, uh, I was intrigued. Uh,

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this was in December, and so I thought,
well, let's see what, you know,

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what comes with this. So I went
along and it was a small event.

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There were probably about 150 people
there in the little lecture theater they

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have go to institute. But among them,
I, there were a couple of people there,

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and I thought, is that,
is that, yes, it is.

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It was Peter Gabriel and Brian
Eno. And, uh, I suddenly,

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you know, I mean, uh, one shouldn't
be too impressed by, by big names,

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but it does, you know,

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it did sort of show actually there
are people who are already, you know,

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like the two of them who are already
switched on to this as something that's

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happening and who are intrigued
by it. Um, and I dunno, you know,

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where that's gonna go. I dunno whether
others will, um, uh, other musicians,

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other high profile musicians will
become involved. But of course,

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Brian Eno and Peter Gabriel have always
had a long interest in experimental

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music, um, in the avant garde.
Uh, so in a sense, you know,

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they are the kind of people that
you would obviously be expecting to,

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to take an interest, but it was very
intriguing that even at that early stage,

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you know, they were there to, to
just find out what was going on.

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So the event consisted,
um, of, uh, you know,

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there were some talks
about general background,

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but then there were some performances,
uh, using quantum computers.

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And in some way or
another, they all used a,

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basically a link through the cloud to
the quantum computers that I b make,

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um, in New York. Uh,

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Eduardo didn't seem too clear
actually whether they were housed.

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There's a new kind of center, um,

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a sort of a quantum data center that
IBM has set up in puke New York.

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But, you know, until then they've
had their quantum computers at,

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to the Yorktown Heights Research Center.

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So he wasn't quite sure which one
was being used, but, you know,

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live in real time. The, the signals
that they were making on stage,

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the performers were being sent to that
quantum computer and processed in some

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way and sent back. And
it was very intriguing.

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It was certainly the kind
of thing that, you know,

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you'd need to be interested in
the avant-garde of music. Uh,

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it wasn't pretty music by any means.

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It sounded more like a sort
of horror movie soundtrack,

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but intriguingly so to my ear.

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It's the other person who
would automatically come
to mind for this sort of

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experimental thing would be bjo. Yeah.

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Would be wonderful, wouldn't
it? And, uh, for all I know,

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she may already be
thinking along those lines,

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but absolutely she's the sort of person
who you'd be, uh, expecting to, to,

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you know, be starting to take an
interest in an area like this.

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But it's, it, uh, I mean, there
aren't many quantum computers, right?

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They've had to connect over
the internet to one to do it.

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So how realistic is it that
this could be anything other

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than, um, a niche avant
garde way of doing music.

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Or to put it less politely,
maybe a gimmick? I mean,

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I think that's what some people wonder
about. But, uh, and you know, again,

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I think frankly, and
Eduardo says this as well,

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that it's too early to
really be able to tell.

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And part of the reason for that is that
the quantum computing resources that are

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generally available to, to people
like him at the moment are very,

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very rudimentary. So they were
using a seven qubit device, um,

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b m device. Um, and you know,

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he has made it very clear that there's
really nothing that he is doing at the

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moment using quantum computing
that could not be simulated on a

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classical computer. Um,
but that's, you know,

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because of the stage
we're at at the moment,

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quantum computing is moving so
fast, you know, already ibm,

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their sort of state-of-the-art
chip has 400 and something

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qubits on. Um, and you know, that's,

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it seems to be sort of changing. I mean,

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there's a kind of almost like a model
or for quantum computing now that is

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really, really fast. You know,
it's changing. Um, you know,

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within each year it seems like there's
a doubling, if not more of the,

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a number of qubits available. Um, so,

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and Eduardo says that already some
of the algorithms that he's using,

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although you could do them on a
classical computer, they would be, uh,

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ex computation expensive
to do. And you know,

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it's probably not gonna be very long
at all before you are using quantum

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resources in a way that's
hard to simulate classically,

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just as already there are some problems
that classical computers would struggle

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with and quantum computers
can do quite quickly.

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And I guess that's particularly
important if you are wanting to use them.

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And this is a part, a big part of, um,

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certainly an aspect of quantum music
if you're wanting to use them live in

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real time, um, that, you know,

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you need those resources to be
able to compute fast. So, um,

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you know, I think that's
the way it's going,

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that as quantum computing resources
expand as they're clearly going to do,

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I think the possibilities for using
them musically are going to expand

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accordingly.

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I think it's probably worth taking a
step back slightly just to look at what

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quantum computing is.

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I mean, the way it's
conventionally explained,

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and I'll try and do this carefully
because sometimes it's a little loosely

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explained, but, um, in
standard classical computing,

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uh, we're used to the idea that there
are bits that, um, encode, uh, in binary.

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So, you know, you could say they,
they have two possible states,

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which we generally represent as a one
or a zero qu for quantum computing.

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Um, we use, uh, kind of
analogous, um, quantum bits,

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um, but they can as well as, uh,
encoding either a one or a zero,

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they can effectively encode
mixtures of those two.

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Um, I, and I should really
use the technical word
superpositions cuz excuse is

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something different in quantum,
uh, computing. Um, so, um,

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what that really means is
not that they're, I mean,
sometimes it's said, well,

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it means these qubits can be both
one and zero at the same time.

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That's not really the best way of putting
it. I mean, they can be, uh, you know,

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they can have those, uh, components
in any ratios for one thing.

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Um,

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but also what it really means is that
when you make a measurement of that

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cubic to find out its state, uh,

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it could either be a one or a zero with
different probabilities depending on how

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you've, you've set it up. Um,

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and what that effectively means
is that you can, uh, that there,

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there is a sort of bigger capacity
for encoding information, if you like,

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in fewer qubits. So you can do
with just a handful, you know, I,

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I said that the, um, the devices
they were using had seven qubits. Um,

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which sounds, you know, when you think
of the millions or billions even, uh,

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of bits that our, you know,
standard desktop com computers have,

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it sounds poultry, but actually
already there's the, uh,

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enough potential in tho that
handful of qubits to do some very,

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very complex tasks because
of this greater capacity for

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encoding, because of the, the
possibility of using, uh, superpositions.

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And the way it tends to happen is
that the qubits have to be coherent

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with one another if you like. They're,
they're, they, you can think of them as,

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you know, like quantum objects.
They're kind of wavy objects,

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and coherent just means that the waves
of each of them sort of stay in step with

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one another that's essential
for doing quantum computing.

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And that's actually the big problem with
it because it's very hard to maintain

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that coherence. Um, thermal
energy, any sort of heat, you know,

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very quickly tends to wash it away,

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00:14:41,240 --> 00:14:45,320
which is why we don't tend to see quantum
phenomena at the everyday level. Um,

221
00:14:45,320 --> 00:14:48,880
so the challenge for quantum computing
is to prevent that from happening.

222
00:14:48,880 --> 00:14:52,960
And generally what it means is that the
qubits have to be cryogenically cooled,

223
00:14:53,410 --> 00:14:58,120
um, as well as some other sort of measures
to prevent that, that de coherence.

224
00:14:58,300 --> 00:15:02,520
And they, even then, they
only stay coherent for a
short time. I mean, you know,

225
00:15:02,520 --> 00:15:05,640
typically less than a
second. But, uh, the,

226
00:15:05,640 --> 00:15:10,480
that's long enough for some quantum
algorithms to be performed before

227
00:15:10,480 --> 00:15:12,480
the, the, the de coherence sets in.

228
00:15:12,850 --> 00:15:15,920
Is it always going to have to
be cryogenically frozen? Is it,

229
00:15:15,920 --> 00:15:19,240
is that a process that
we just can't do at room.

230
00:15:19,240 --> 00:15:22,200
Temperature? Again, I, I
think nobody knows, um,

231
00:15:22,490 --> 00:15:27,000
at the moment with the kind of, kind of,
um, quantum bits and qubits that are,

232
00:15:27,000 --> 00:15:31,720
that are, that are standard in
many of these devices, they, um,

233
00:15:31,900 --> 00:15:36,560
are superconducting quantum bits and
superconducting superconductivity is

234
00:15:36,560 --> 00:15:41,160
itself inherently a quantum phenomenon.
Um, so you have to cool, uh, the,

235
00:15:41,160 --> 00:15:43,960
the little, they're kind of almost
like little rings of, of metal,

236
00:15:43,960 --> 00:15:47,760
and you have to cool them right down to
get them into a superconducting state.

237
00:15:48,020 --> 00:15:51,360
And that state itself,
because it's a quantum state,

238
00:15:51,730 --> 00:15:56,320
it can be used to encode quantum
information. So, um, you know,

239
00:15:56,320 --> 00:16:00,640
at the moment, uh, you, it, it, it is
necessary to cryogenically call them.

240
00:16:00,640 --> 00:16:03,960
But actually, you know, just
in the past few weeks we've uh,

241
00:16:03,960 --> 00:16:07,280
sort of been hearing about how
superconductivity itself, um,

242
00:16:07,280 --> 00:16:12,080
which is a quantum phenomenon,
nevertheless, it seems
possible to achieve it,

243
00:16:12,080 --> 00:16:16,440
add something like, and perhaps
literally at room temperatures, um,

244
00:16:16,440 --> 00:16:21,440
in some systems ones in which, uh,
generally speaking, you have to squeeze,

245
00:16:21,690 --> 00:16:25,840
uh, to apply a lot of pressure to to, to
get to the superconducting state. But,

246
00:16:25,840 --> 00:16:26,280
you know,

247
00:16:26,280 --> 00:16:29,600
it certainly seems feasible that you
might be able to make superconductors at

248
00:16:29,600 --> 00:16:30,640
work at room temperature.

249
00:16:30,960 --> 00:16:35,480
You'd probably still need some sort
of cooling to avoid the, the, uh,

250
00:16:35,480 --> 00:16:40,320
deco hearing effects of heat possibly,
but we don't really know. So, uh,

251
00:16:40,320 --> 00:16:43,120
you know, I don't think
it's, it's essential. Um, uh,

252
00:16:43,120 --> 00:16:46,480
I don't think it's a given that quantum
computers will have to be cryogenically

253
00:16:46,480 --> 00:16:50,520
cooled, but even if they are, it's not a
big deal. Actually. It means, you know,

254
00:16:50,520 --> 00:16:54,400
that they have to be housed in these
centers with cryogenic cooling and so on.

255
00:16:54,400 --> 00:16:57,480
But that's okay because you,
the resources, as I say,

256
00:16:57,480 --> 00:16:59,240
can be made available through the cloud.

257
00:16:59,770 --> 00:17:03,640
So I don't think that that
in itself need be a, uh,

258
00:17:03,640 --> 00:17:07,240
an obstacle to making quantum
computing very useful.

259
00:17:07,410 --> 00:17:10,600
It does perhaps mean that, you know,
certainly for the foreseeable future,

260
00:17:10,600 --> 00:17:13,840
we're not gonna have quantum computing
laptops, and it's not even clear that,

261
00:17:13,840 --> 00:17:18,840
that we'd actually want them. Um, but,
uh, you know, the, all all of this,

262
00:17:19,010 --> 00:17:21,440
uh, is, is open in the indefinite future.

263
00:17:21,440 --> 00:17:23,320
We don't know what the
limitations might be.

264
00:17:23,570 --> 00:17:24,720
To, to be perfectly honest,

265
00:17:24,720 --> 00:17:29,440
the first application possible application
of quantum computing that I've heard

266
00:17:29,440 --> 00:17:32,160
that made me think, oh, I can see
you might want that in a laptop,

267
00:17:32,160 --> 00:17:36,440
is when you just mentioned the possible
new ways of recording audio. I mean,

268
00:17:36,440 --> 00:17:39,760
that's a, that's a process that somebody
might want on their laptop, right?

269
00:17:39,760 --> 00:17:42,480
It's possible. Yeah. I mean,
you know, again, it, it, it,

270
00:17:42,480 --> 00:17:46,760
we don't even know what would be the best
way of representing audio in a quantum

271
00:17:46,760 --> 00:17:51,320
sense, but, you know, they are
waves, <laugh>, and audio is waves.

272
00:17:51,850 --> 00:17:54,720
Um, and maybe you can, you know, what,

273
00:17:54,720 --> 00:17:57,920
what would happen if you could sort of
create superpositions of two different

274
00:17:57,920 --> 00:18:01,840
tunes? I really don't know what the, the
possibilities are. But, uh, you know,

275
00:18:01,840 --> 00:18:05,680
that's, that's exactly the kind of
thing that Eduardo and, and others are,

276
00:18:05,680 --> 00:18:08,760
you know, keen to explore. Just
what, what are the possibilities?

277
00:18:08,800 --> 00:18:10,320
Where might they be useful?

278
00:18:11,600 --> 00:18:14,040
Musicians look for inspiration
everywhere, and it's,

279
00:18:14,040 --> 00:18:16,800
it's a wonderful thing that they look
for it in science and they look for it In

280
00:18:16,800 --> 00:18:17,570
physics,

281
00:18:17,570 --> 00:18:22,310
it quite often is a bit
difficult to listen to

282
00:18:22,310 --> 00:18:26,350
when science and music meet
from a science point of view.

283
00:18:26,350 --> 00:18:30,990
I can totally see why it's interesting.
Why is that interesting from a music.

284
00:18:30,990 --> 00:18:34,870
Point of view? Well, um, okay, here,
here's one possible answer to that. Um,

285
00:18:35,080 --> 00:18:39,190
because th there's also, um,
a lot of interest, of course,

286
00:18:39,240 --> 00:18:43,150
in using classical computers, um, in, uh,

287
00:18:43,150 --> 00:18:47,630
their sort of AI mode,
uh, for making music.

288
00:18:48,050 --> 00:18:50,070
And, you know, there are, um,

289
00:18:50,070 --> 00:18:53,990
deep learning algorithms that have been
made that are pretty good at creating

290
00:18:54,340 --> 00:18:59,110
pastes of music in a certain style
just as chat g p t can do it for text.

291
00:18:59,480 --> 00:19:02,990
So, you know, you can say to some
of these, you know, algorithms,

292
00:19:02,990 --> 00:19:04,470
give me a a knock turn.

293
00:19:04,470 --> 00:19:08,030
That sounds a bit like when a show pans
and these days it can do pretty well,

294
00:19:08,190 --> 00:19:12,950
which is, is no big deal in itself. I
mean, I find that a bit sort of dull,

295
00:19:12,950 --> 00:19:17,950
but what, what, but what's more
interesting is that some of those systems,

296
00:19:18,240 --> 00:19:22,870
um, AI systems for music, they
can generate musical ideas.

297
00:19:23,450 --> 00:19:24,550
And, um,

298
00:19:24,580 --> 00:19:29,270
what some composers are doing
is using them purely for that to

299
00:19:29,630 --> 00:19:31,230
generate things that they wouldn't,

300
00:19:31,230 --> 00:19:35,750
the composer themselves wouldn't have
come up with. Um, but that they can hear,

301
00:19:35,970 --> 00:19:36,510
you know,

302
00:19:36,510 --> 00:19:40,590
maybe just a sort of kernel of an idea
that's been generated by AI and think

303
00:19:40,590 --> 00:19:42,830
that's got possibilities.
I can do stuff with that.

304
00:19:42,830 --> 00:19:46,390
Maybe I can use the AI to
expand on that to, you know, um,

305
00:19:46,390 --> 00:19:51,070
develop it into something or maybe
I can do it myself. Um, uh, so,

306
00:19:51,070 --> 00:19:54,670
you know, that's the way,
um, a AI is being used,

307
00:19:54,670 --> 00:19:57,270
or at least I think that's the way
it's being used, interestingly,

308
00:19:57,320 --> 00:20:02,190
as a sort of tool for human composers
rather than just as a system for making a

309
00:20:02,190 --> 00:20:06,790
load of music. That sounds a bit like
what we've heard before. Um, and you know,

310
00:20:06,790 --> 00:20:11,590
there is a, a, a long tradition of
using, I mean, you said, uh, that,

311
00:20:11,590 --> 00:20:15,510
you know, musicians and artists
of all sorts have always been,

312
00:20:15,510 --> 00:20:19,190
there's always been some who have
been really eager to use the latest

313
00:20:19,190 --> 00:20:23,110
technologies as soon as they appear and
see what they can they can do for them.

314
00:20:23,360 --> 00:20:23,950
So, you know,

315
00:20:23,950 --> 00:20:27,310
that happened with the beginnings of
recorded sound in the early 20th century.

316
00:20:27,600 --> 00:20:29,870
It happened in the 1950s, uh,

317
00:20:29,870 --> 00:20:33,390
and sixties when classical computers
started to become available.

318
00:20:33,390 --> 00:20:37,350
There were some, uh,
composers, uh, iis z Zar,

319
00:20:37,410 --> 00:20:41,390
the Greek French composer, uh, is
probably the best known of them.

320
00:20:41,390 --> 00:20:43,550
He was a kind of avant-garde in, you know,

321
00:20:43,550 --> 00:20:48,000
in his time he was really interested
in what computers could do for, um,

322
00:20:48,000 --> 00:20:52,920
for music. John Cage, actually the
experimental us, uh, composer was another.

323
00:20:53,530 --> 00:20:57,440
Um, and they actually tended
to sort of congregate, um,

324
00:20:57,440 --> 00:21:01,840
around Bell Labs, um, uh, in
New New Jersey in those days.

325
00:21:01,840 --> 00:21:05,720
There was a whole kind of
group of scientists and
artists and tech technologists

326
00:21:06,260 --> 00:21:10,520
who were, you know, just trying to
discuss that stuff and see what these,

327
00:21:10,520 --> 00:21:14,960
this new tech technology could do.
And some interesting stuff did,

328
00:21:14,990 --> 00:21:18,600
I think come out of that. Um,
it, you know, it, it's always,

329
00:21:18,600 --> 00:21:21,800
when it's sort of at the forefront
and it's the cutting edge, it's uh,

330
00:21:21,800 --> 00:21:24,080
it's avant garde. It is an acquired taste.

331
00:21:24,080 --> 00:21:27,920
And certainly the stuff I
heard at in December, you know,

332
00:21:27,990 --> 00:21:31,960
would've been an acquired taste. It,
it was, you know, there were rumbles,

333
00:21:31,960 --> 00:21:34,880
there were sort of static and
so on. But actually, you know,

334
00:21:34,880 --> 00:21:39,640
what I've heard of Eduardo's music
previously using other technologies is of

335
00:21:39,640 --> 00:21:42,320
that sort, it's almost closer
to what some, I mean, the,

336
00:21:42,320 --> 00:21:43,880
the distinction is maybe arbitrary,

337
00:21:43,880 --> 00:21:47,320
but some people talk about
sound art rather than music,

338
00:21:47,430 --> 00:21:52,000
that you're just using sound to
create a kind of an ambiance. Um,

339
00:21:52,140 --> 00:21:55,800
and, you know, that overlaps completely
with what Brian Eno is known for doing.

340
00:21:56,370 --> 00:21:59,040
So, you know, at this stage
it is an acquired taste,

341
00:21:59,040 --> 00:22:01,440
but I actually find it much
more interesting to, to,

342
00:22:01,440 --> 00:22:06,320
to see when the technologies can take
you in new directions rather than,

343
00:22:06,620 --> 00:22:07,400
you know,

344
00:22:07,400 --> 00:22:11,400
seeing whether you can make a sort
of quantum version of a bar canta or

345
00:22:11,400 --> 00:22:14,240
something that's, that's dull. That's,
that's kind of been done already.

346
00:22:14,240 --> 00:22:15,073
So why bother.

347
00:22:15,090 --> 00:22:17,640
At the quantum music event
that Philip attended in London?

348
00:22:17,640 --> 00:22:21,800
There was also an interesting sounding
interaction between a violinist and a

349
00:22:21,800 --> 00:22:22,510
quantum computer.

350
00:22:22,510 --> 00:22:27,360
Paul Stratton was one of the performers
at the, um, December, uh, conference,

351
00:22:27,560 --> 00:22:32,240
uh, concert I suppose we could
call it. And, um, in, in that case,

352
00:22:32,490 --> 00:22:36,320
he was, it was like a sort of call
and response. He would play, uh,

353
00:22:36,320 --> 00:22:37,640
an improvised line,

354
00:22:37,710 --> 00:22:42,680
a little phrase of music that
would be processed, uh, you know,

355
00:22:42,680 --> 00:22:47,480
digitally and sent to the I B M
computer that would do something using

356
00:22:47,480 --> 00:22:50,520
a quantum algorithm that
would come up with a response,

357
00:22:50,820 --> 00:22:55,200
and that would then be played
back in real time in the, um,

358
00:22:55,200 --> 00:22:58,440
in the Gutter Institute. And,
you know, you could play it back,

359
00:22:58,790 --> 00:23:02,200
sort of choosing whatever
sound you wanted. In this case,

360
00:23:02,200 --> 00:23:07,160
it was a kind of saxophone, synthesized
saxophone sound. Um, and so, you know,

361
00:23:07,160 --> 00:23:10,000
it was a kind of an improvised, um,

362
00:23:10,000 --> 00:23:13,800
call and response between the
computer and the, uh, the violinist,

363
00:23:14,170 --> 00:23:19,000
exactly how what Paul Stratton played was

364
00:23:19,070 --> 00:23:23,520
used to come up with a response
line. You know, I don't know,

365
00:23:23,530 --> 00:23:28,240
it wasn't sort of, it wasn't too clear
as some kind of quantum algorithm. Um,

366
00:23:28,240 --> 00:23:32,720
and again, this is something that Ai,
uh, music systems are doing as well,

367
00:23:32,720 --> 00:23:34,600
that they can, you can sort of, you know,

368
00:23:34,600 --> 00:23:39,040
they can improvise to some extent
and they can with prompts from a,

369
00:23:39,040 --> 00:23:42,120
a live musician, and you can
get an interesting sort of, um,

370
00:23:42,120 --> 00:23:46,920
interaction going there.
Um, and you know, again,

371
00:23:46,920 --> 00:23:51,880
it wasn't clear what the quantum
aspect of this was adding to a,

372
00:23:51,880 --> 00:23:56,640
an an approach like that, except
that I would say with AI, that you,

373
00:23:56,640 --> 00:23:58,240
you can often hear, you know,

374
00:23:58,240 --> 00:24:03,240
it's just not much more than the same
note sort of being improvised by the

375
00:24:03,520 --> 00:24:05,880
human sort of muddled around
a bit and maybe, you know,

376
00:24:06,080 --> 00:24:08,920
slightly switched around. Whereas
this, it sounded quite different,

377
00:24:08,920 --> 00:24:11,640
the lines that the computer was
coming up with. And, you know,

378
00:24:11,640 --> 00:24:15,360
in some ways quite surprising.
And the hope, I guess, in a, uh,

379
00:24:15,360 --> 00:24:19,080
a situation like this is that
then the human, you know,

380
00:24:19,080 --> 00:24:23,800
performer is inspired by what they've
heard in response and they come up,

381
00:24:23,800 --> 00:24:25,640
you know, they go off in
a different direction.

382
00:24:25,640 --> 00:24:29,920
And it goes from there in a way
similar to the way many jazz

383
00:24:30,800 --> 00:24:34,000
musicians interact off
one another. Um, so yeah,

384
00:24:34,000 --> 00:24:37,120
that was another way in which
the, uh, the algorithms were used.

385
00:24:37,120 --> 00:24:41,840
The technological singularity is a
hypothetical point in the future where

386
00:24:41,840 --> 00:24:46,760
technology growth becomes uncontrollable
and irreversible bringing about

387
00:24:46,760 --> 00:24:49,320
unforeseeable changes
to human civilization.

388
00:24:49,580 --> 00:24:54,520
I'd like to think that quantum music
won't replace all musicians and all

389
00:24:54,520 --> 00:24:57,920
music, and although those changes
are going to be unforeseeable,

390
00:24:58,140 --> 00:25:00,560
I'd like to reassure those
musicians listening to.

391
00:25:00,810 --> 00:25:04,000
Um, I don't foresee that. Um,

392
00:25:04,460 --> 00:25:09,240
and I don't certainly don't think
we want it. Um, and you know,

393
00:25:09,240 --> 00:25:11,240
there is a big discussion
going on, and it's happened,

394
00:25:11,430 --> 00:25:15,160
it's happened much more with,
uh, with AI than with, uh,

395
00:25:15,160 --> 00:25:18,920
quantum computing that, um, you
know, people are talking about, well,

396
00:25:18,920 --> 00:25:23,400
what does creativity really mean?
Because at the moment, um, as I say,

397
00:25:23,530 --> 00:25:28,080
AI systems can't really
do much more interesting

398
00:25:28,080 --> 00:25:32,920
than pastiche. I've heard some that do
actually. Um, there was a, there's a,

399
00:25:32,920 --> 00:25:33,960
a, a group at, uh,

400
00:25:33,960 --> 00:25:36,920
the University of Malaga in Spain
who had a really interesting system,

401
00:25:37,120 --> 00:25:41,600
certainly about 10 years ago,
called Iams that um, was,

402
00:25:41,600 --> 00:25:45,320
it wasn't just making pastiche, it was
general, genuinely composing pieces,

403
00:25:45,920 --> 00:25:50,280
again, in a kind of modernist
style, quite a sort of spiky style.

404
00:25:50,370 --> 00:25:54,600
It sounded to me like kind of early
20th century music, entirely, uh,

405
00:25:54,610 --> 00:25:57,560
AI generated. And some
of that was, I mean,

406
00:25:57,560 --> 00:26:00,120
it composed it and then it could score it.

407
00:26:00,120 --> 00:26:04,600
And then some of that was played by
professional musicians including, uh,

408
00:26:04,600 --> 00:26:07,960
I think the London Symphony. Um, and, uh,

409
00:26:08,210 --> 00:26:12,640
it was interesting, you know, I think it
was, there were some interesting ideas,

410
00:26:12,850 --> 00:26:17,360
um, in there. So, uh, you know, the,
the, but, but, but I think that, that,

411
00:26:17,360 --> 00:26:20,200
that often when you are using
deep learning like this,

412
00:26:20,200 --> 00:26:24,240
you're just in a sense getting back
what is already in the dataset.

413
00:26:24,250 --> 00:26:28,000
So the fact that you could make something
that sounds a bit like a choppa knock

414
00:26:28,000 --> 00:26:32,880
turn, if you train the AI on
Choppa, no turns big deal, you know,

415
00:26:32,880 --> 00:26:37,080
that, that that doesn't impress me.
And it's always, from what I've heard,

416
00:26:37,080 --> 00:26:41,240
it's always a little bit more rubbish,
actually, <laugh>, it's kinda, it's you,

417
00:26:41,240 --> 00:26:45,960
you, you can, um, yeah, you just
get a sense that, okay, it's like,

418
00:26:45,960 --> 00:26:49,840
you know, a, a not very good composer
sort of trying to do a choppa knock turn.

419
00:26:49,840 --> 00:26:53,880
But there are some cases where certainly
non-expert listeners have struggled to

420
00:26:53,880 --> 00:26:57,200
tell the difference between
the two. Um, but you know,

421
00:26:57,200 --> 00:27:00,120
I don't think that's ever gonna be
very interesting. And in any event,

422
00:27:00,760 --> 00:27:05,240
anything like that requires
the human material,

423
00:27:05,580 --> 00:27:09,240
you know, to be trained on. Um, so,

424
00:27:09,250 --> 00:27:12,840
so that it's not obvious
that it's, there's any reason
why it would replace us,

425
00:27:12,840 --> 00:27:13,520
and if it did,

426
00:27:13,520 --> 00:27:18,040
then it's not clear where it would
get any kind of innovation from. Um,

427
00:27:18,570 --> 00:27:23,240
so, you know, I don't think
there's, um, uh, there, there's a,

428
00:27:23,350 --> 00:27:26,680
a strong argument for any of
these technologies at this point,

429
00:27:26,680 --> 00:27:29,440
being genuinely creative
in their own right.

430
00:27:29,700 --> 00:27:34,240
But I think what they can do
is to feed the creativity of

431
00:27:34,600 --> 00:27:38,680
musicians by doing things that the
musicians themselves wouldn't do and don't

432
00:27:38,680 --> 00:27:39,300
expect.

433
00:27:39,300 --> 00:27:43,800
One such musician is theoretical
physicist and composer Maria

434
00:27:43,870 --> 00:27:46,480
Minoni, who we'll hear from in a moment.

435
00:27:46,820 --> 00:27:49,680
But April the 14th is World Quantum Day,

436
00:27:50,060 --> 00:27:54,200
and the physics world team is joining
forces with their journals and eBooks

437
00:27:54,200 --> 00:27:57,640
colleagues at I O P publishing
to celebrate all things Quantum,

438
00:27:58,300 --> 00:28:02,120
the Physics World Weekly podcast,
which I hope you all listen to,

439
00:28:02,120 --> 00:28:04,960
as well as this one will
have a quantum theme,

440
00:28:05,420 --> 00:28:09,640
and the website will highlight a selection
of quantum related feature articles,

441
00:28:09,870 --> 00:28:12,000
interviews and analysis pieces.

442
00:28:12,800 --> 00:28:17,080
Their colleagues in journals and eBooks
will also be showcasing some of the best

443
00:28:17,080 --> 00:28:21,800
quantum content and related eBooks
will be offered at a discount.

444
00:28:22,050 --> 00:28:25,600
So don't miss out on Quantum day
celebrations at I O P publishing,

445
00:28:26,020 --> 00:28:28,640
but now let's go to Maria. Man.

446
00:28:29,230 --> 00:28:33,640
I have a master degree as a
theoretical physicist, and then, uh,

447
00:28:33,640 --> 00:28:37,880
I got other degrees in other
disciplines, um, more in detail.

448
00:28:37,880 --> 00:28:42,040
I study music conservatory where
I study conducting composition

449
00:28:42,540 --> 00:28:43,320
and piano,

450
00:28:43,320 --> 00:28:47,680
and I got three other different
dec degrees all school,

451
00:28:47,740 --> 00:28:51,520
PAG school, I moved to
Paris where I got, uh,

452
00:28:51,520 --> 00:28:56,120
another master degree in, uh,
computer science and acoustics,

453
00:28:56,360 --> 00:29:01,080
Cigna processing applied to music
between <inaudible> and <inaudible>

454
00:29:01,710 --> 00:29:02,380
Perk.

455
00:29:02,380 --> 00:29:07,240
And then I moved to the US where
I got my PhD in music composition.

456
00:29:07,950 --> 00:29:08,760
Then, uh,

457
00:29:08,760 --> 00:29:13,160
for several years I traveled between
the US and Japan for a collaboration.

458
00:29:13,620 --> 00:29:16,480
And I currently working in Italy, uh,

459
00:29:16,480 --> 00:29:21,040
two University of PAMA in my town
in, uh, computer engineering.

460
00:29:21,500 --> 00:29:22,333
And, uh,

461
00:29:22,780 --> 00:29:26,640
I'm also collaborating with
Kaska University of Venice.

462
00:29:26,640 --> 00:29:29,080
Were you always interested
in physics and music?

463
00:29:29,390 --> 00:29:33,400
Yeah, in the first place, it was
something pretty crucial, I'd say,

464
00:29:33,570 --> 00:29:38,040
because I started studying
music when, uh, I was 11,

465
00:29:38,490 --> 00:29:42,240
uh, ish years old. Uh,
but since my childhood,

466
00:29:42,240 --> 00:29:45,200
I always been fascinated
by that. And I study,

467
00:29:45,200 --> 00:29:49,960
study physical university because
I wanted to learn how nature

468
00:29:49,960 --> 00:29:50,793
was working.

469
00:29:51,170 --> 00:29:55,040
So I'm not sure if I precisely
understood how nature was working,

470
00:29:55,040 --> 00:29:58,880
but at least I think I had
very interesting studies.

471
00:29:59,550 --> 00:30:03,360
I had some professors who were
interested in both topics,

472
00:30:03,540 --> 00:30:08,090
who encouraged me to
start like putting things

473
00:30:08,570 --> 00:30:12,810
together. And little bedo,
I started to, to find out,

474
00:30:13,460 --> 00:30:16,010
um, to looking for, um,

475
00:30:16,510 --> 00:30:21,170
the formal side in music and like the

476
00:30:21,170 --> 00:30:25,850
statics sides in physics.
In my master's thesis,

477
00:30:25,900 --> 00:30:27,530
in music, in physics, sorry,

478
00:30:27,690 --> 00:30:32,570
there was a chapter of music
because a specific topic was

479
00:30:32,710 --> 00:30:36,730
the measurement of the
amount of memory in a system,

480
00:30:36,940 --> 00:30:41,610
in a quantum system. And
through some sweet adaptation,

481
00:30:41,840 --> 00:30:46,010
I used this formula under supervision, my,

482
00:30:46,740 --> 00:30:49,210
um, thesis, uh, advisor,

483
00:30:49,480 --> 00:30:54,130
I adapted this formula
to major the amount of

484
00:30:54,480 --> 00:30:58,730
memory in a musical composition.
And that worked. And, uh,

485
00:30:58,730 --> 00:31:01,170
that works was recently,
recently published.

486
00:31:01,600 --> 00:31:03,850
What do you mean by memory and music?

487
00:31:04,260 --> 00:31:07,250
So in music, actually, we have, yes,

488
00:31:07,250 --> 00:31:09,330
we have time after time,

489
00:31:09,590 --> 00:31:13,730
but our way to listen to
music is not an instant

490
00:31:14,070 --> 00:31:14,930
understanding.

491
00:31:15,280 --> 00:31:19,570
Rather we have like chunks of time and

492
00:31:20,240 --> 00:31:24,530
this something connected with
the amount of musical repetition.

493
00:31:25,100 --> 00:31:25,890
So for example,

494
00:31:25,890 --> 00:31:30,610
we can have a theme or a court
or a rhythm or something,

495
00:31:30,770 --> 00:31:35,250
maybe something that has a
duration in time, but pretty short.

496
00:31:35,660 --> 00:31:39,250
So some, some unit which
can be recognizable,

497
00:31:39,250 --> 00:31:40,690
which can be recognized.

498
00:31:41,580 --> 00:31:46,170
So the more the repetitions and the higher

499
00:31:46,430 --> 00:31:50,090
the amount of memory
in the sense of course,

500
00:31:50,090 --> 00:31:54,490
if we have like a classic
piece with a precise structure,

501
00:31:54,660 --> 00:31:59,210
we are more likely to have repetition
if we have some kind of more

502
00:31:59,400 --> 00:32:03,730
random, like music, we have
less, if we have a song,

503
00:32:03,980 --> 00:32:08,330
usually we have some specific
structure repetition.

504
00:32:08,860 --> 00:32:13,010
So we have musical genre
that have different

505
00:32:13,420 --> 00:32:16,450
amounts usually in mean of memory,

506
00:32:16,870 --> 00:32:21,210
but also different styles of
composers and different pieces.

507
00:32:21,660 --> 00:32:26,330
It is something which is related
with our opposition of music because

508
00:32:26,380 --> 00:32:30,770
we like to have somehow to have
reation, oh, this is the theme, uh,

509
00:32:30,960 --> 00:32:35,850
that is recalled in the fourth movement
from the first movement of the symphony.

510
00:32:36,020 --> 00:32:40,680
We got that because we
are somehow driven by

511
00:32:41,070 --> 00:32:46,000
cycles and things. If we have too
much repetition, things are boring,

512
00:32:46,540 --> 00:32:49,480
too predictable. If we
have too few repetition,

513
00:32:49,970 --> 00:32:53,840
we cannot really understand what
is going on in a musical piece.

514
00:32:53,840 --> 00:32:58,800
So it's something like a bit connected
with aesthetics of the musical

515
00:32:58,800 --> 00:32:59,510
piece.

516
00:32:59,510 --> 00:33:02,800
Yeah, there's like a very big
difference between, you know,

517
00:33:02,920 --> 00:33:07,400
can't get you outta my Head by
Kelly Mangan Les's Fifth Symphony

518
00:33:07,850 --> 00:33:12,160
in, well, in every ways isn't, but what,
which pieces did you use for the study.

519
00:33:12,210 --> 00:33:17,000
In that study? We started
during the, um, the thesis,

520
00:33:17,450 --> 00:33:19,920
uh, man VA professor was,

521
00:33:19,920 --> 00:33:24,840
professor Compan is a theoretical
physicist who is returned

522
00:33:24,840 --> 00:33:29,400
now, but recently published the
paper together. We looked at, um,

523
00:33:29,400 --> 00:33:33,920
first some classical music,
bini, a song by Vincent Bini,

524
00:33:34,500 --> 00:33:38,280
and then, um, Philip Gra and

525
00:33:40,550 --> 00:33:45,440
more modern composers.
However, the same structure,

526
00:33:46,250 --> 00:33:46,600
uh,

527
00:33:46,600 --> 00:33:51,600
of analysis might be applied
different even to some pop music or

528
00:33:51,600 --> 00:33:56,480
just piece provided that we have
a recording and then we make

529
00:33:56,830 --> 00:33:59,280
a transcription, uh,

530
00:33:59,480 --> 00:34:02,080
other things with the separation
of the different lines.

531
00:34:02,660 --> 00:34:04,950
And yes,

532
00:34:05,250 --> 00:34:09,550
for this very specific
study we had made, um,

533
00:34:09,600 --> 00:34:13,470
we need some kind of symbolic
description. So the chime,

534
00:34:13,470 --> 00:34:17,750
we have the onset, the
pitches, loudness and duration.

535
00:34:18,160 --> 00:34:21,510
We had considered this
ailments, but now nevertheless,

536
00:34:21,600 --> 00:34:26,430
we might extend this idea in a
more sound processing domain.

537
00:34:26,920 --> 00:34:27,830
So within that,

538
00:34:27,830 --> 00:34:32,310
but there could be a research idea for
some new stuff and maybe just working

539
00:34:32,310 --> 00:34:35,510
with audio signal and uh,

540
00:34:35,930 --> 00:34:38,870
and working directly with
the recordings in this way,

541
00:34:38,870 --> 00:34:41,710
even without the
description, we can do that.

542
00:34:42,500 --> 00:34:47,310
I think that it might be interesting to
see not only examples of Western music,

543
00:34:47,330 --> 00:34:52,230
but also other musics around the
world and see if there are some kind

544
00:34:52,230 --> 00:34:54,870
of pattern repetitions we might see.

545
00:34:55,120 --> 00:34:59,830
So at the border with music information
retrieval, which is a field in itself,

546
00:35:00,200 --> 00:35:05,110
usually people work with a
lot of musical PCs and use

547
00:35:05,110 --> 00:35:08,710
auto completely automatic
techniques to compare stuff.

548
00:35:09,170 --> 00:35:10,190
But in that case,

549
00:35:10,190 --> 00:35:14,910
the inspiration regarding memory
was directly from physics,

550
00:35:15,280 --> 00:35:18,710
because I was working with no mark of,

551
00:35:20,240 --> 00:35:22,070
um, a system. Uh,

552
00:35:22,420 --> 00:35:26,990
a time dynamics is
Markov Ovn is if we have

553
00:35:27,300 --> 00:35:31,310
a time dependencies, which
is connected with some, uh,

554
00:35:31,310 --> 00:35:32,870
former time Eastern,

555
00:35:32,870 --> 00:35:37,030
but not with the entire
previous time story.

556
00:35:37,610 --> 00:35:42,280
However, when we have a non Ovn dynamics,

557
00:35:42,280 --> 00:35:45,280
it means that we have, uh,

558
00:35:45,760 --> 00:35:50,680
relevant effects of memory not
connected with just the former time

559
00:35:50,680 --> 00:35:52,600
Eastern. So,

560
00:35:52,660 --> 00:35:56,560
and the was precise
reform to analyze that,

561
00:35:56,560 --> 00:35:59,880
because we might have
two states in physics,

562
00:36:00,490 --> 00:36:02,560
we that are different,

563
00:36:03,340 --> 00:36:07,720
but if after the time evolution

564
00:36:08,270 --> 00:36:12,760
they get more and more
similar between them,

565
00:36:13,250 --> 00:36:18,080
it means that we have lost
the information regarding

566
00:36:18,080 --> 00:36:22,880
their difference. So we lost
to the memory in the sense, uh,

567
00:36:22,890 --> 00:36:24,160
if they keep,

568
00:36:24,390 --> 00:36:28,880
they are distant different at
time zero and they still are

569
00:36:29,270 --> 00:36:30,480
very different,

570
00:36:30,710 --> 00:36:34,560
easy to be the yes to
make some distinction.

571
00:36:34,670 --> 00:36:37,120
Then we keep the information,

572
00:36:37,120 --> 00:36:40,080
we keep memory in music
kind of the opposite,

573
00:36:40,930 --> 00:36:44,240
because if we have two musical passages,

574
00:36:44,480 --> 00:36:49,240
which each are similar to each
other, then we see, say that we have,

575
00:36:49,410 --> 00:36:51,040
uh, great amount of memory.

576
00:36:51,940 --> 00:36:54,730
So we just said to use
the inverse fork for.

577
00:36:54,730 --> 00:36:58,890
That. Has that changed the way you
write music or listen to music?

578
00:36:59,190 --> 00:37:02,250
Yes, yes. Because after this study,

579
00:37:02,440 --> 00:37:06,930
that's funny that it was recently
published, but it was like, uh,

580
00:37:07,270 --> 00:37:11,850
10 years ago, uh, way before like
the revival of quantum things. Um,

581
00:37:11,880 --> 00:37:15,930
I start to make research in the
domain of mathematics and music,

582
00:37:15,930 --> 00:37:17,130
and I'm still are,

583
00:37:17,130 --> 00:37:21,690
there is an entire community is
not only me using several aspects

584
00:37:22,100 --> 00:37:26,890
of math and physics and computer
science to analyze music and to

585
00:37:26,890 --> 00:37:31,690
create music in some sense. Um, um,

586
00:37:32,080 --> 00:37:32,440
I,

587
00:37:32,440 --> 00:37:37,370
I became more aware of what I
was doing in music because even

588
00:37:37,370 --> 00:37:41,570
when you just improvise, I'm
also active as music improviser.

589
00:37:41,720 --> 00:37:44,770
When improvised what you're doing,
you are taking some elements,

590
00:37:44,990 --> 00:37:47,770
you are making like a
filtering, a selection.

591
00:37:48,240 --> 00:37:52,050
Then you perform some variation,
some elements you propose,

592
00:37:52,870 --> 00:37:56,890
you take as input what the other
guys in the band are doing and,

593
00:37:57,150 --> 00:38:00,610
and the output you, you
provide a new variation.

594
00:38:01,100 --> 00:38:05,570
So when you start thinking
music in terms of element and

595
00:38:05,570 --> 00:38:06,403
transformation,

596
00:38:06,700 --> 00:38:11,170
somehow you are already doing science
because a big bunch of science is

597
00:38:11,170 --> 00:38:13,410
connected with, uh,

598
00:38:13,810 --> 00:38:18,730
functions or s maybe and seeing
how we can transform some

599
00:38:19,010 --> 00:38:21,690
material. How can we create variation?

600
00:38:22,380 --> 00:38:27,090
So somehow I became more aware
about that in some of my musical

601
00:38:27,150 --> 00:38:31,810
composition. I directly took
inspiration from science,

602
00:38:32,310 --> 00:38:36,920
for example, I wanted to create
some simple examples of stuff

603
00:38:37,550 --> 00:38:40,120
once I worked with, uh,

604
00:38:40,120 --> 00:38:45,000
branching and I composed a piece where
everything was starting from a node

605
00:38:45,580 --> 00:38:49,840
and then divided into
two musical sequences,

606
00:38:52,630 --> 00:38:56,280
then from one musical
instrument to multiple one.

607
00:39:13,690 --> 00:39:16,720
So it is like just, just divide in, uh,

608
00:39:17,350 --> 00:39:18,720
into multiple elements.

609
00:39:18,880 --> 00:39:23,360
Other times I just focused
on the concept of, uh,

610
00:39:23,360 --> 00:39:28,320
of sequence of transformation.
Uh, for example was inspired by,

611
00:39:28,660 --> 00:39:33,240
you know, the GUI as, uh,

612
00:39:33,430 --> 00:39:36,240
a body constituted by several scales.

613
00:39:36,650 --> 00:39:41,000
So a single scale is the theme,
and you apply the repetition,

614
00:39:41,320 --> 00:39:43,600
which is mathematical operation.

615
00:39:44,110 --> 00:39:47,440
Then you apply a change of the envelope,

616
00:39:47,590 --> 00:39:51,360
like following the shape
of the animal. And again,

617
00:39:51,360 --> 00:39:54,280
you can use math to
describe this operation.

618
00:39:54,700 --> 00:39:59,400
And I use this structure
to build up a piece to

619
00:39:59,400 --> 00:40:01,280
improvise as a scheme to improvise.

620
00:40:39,000 --> 00:40:41,950
So I will say that, um,

621
00:40:42,320 --> 00:40:46,510
science in general are a way of thinking,

622
00:40:46,510 --> 00:40:51,070
which is between math and
physics, I think that can provide,

623
00:40:51,680 --> 00:40:56,630
uh, countless ideas for
music making the same

624
00:40:56,870 --> 00:41:01,510
way we can have a musical
piece or in general

625
00:41:01,640 --> 00:41:02,510
an artwork.

626
00:41:02,930 --> 00:41:07,910
And we can use categories coming
from scientists to analyze that.

627
00:41:08,410 --> 00:41:12,470
But this is not something really new
because people in the renaissance were

628
00:41:12,470 --> 00:41:15,630
doing that were like
putting stuff together.

629
00:41:16,610 --> 00:41:19,790
And in different parts of
history, they have been.

630
00:41:20,160 --> 00:41:24,190
We also had philosopher
who were artists, we were,

631
00:41:24,840 --> 00:41:28,950
uh, scientists as well.
Uh, good was a poet.

632
00:41:29,520 --> 00:41:34,280
He was inspired by shapes in, uh,

633
00:41:34,280 --> 00:41:38,840
in nature. He was trying to
find, uh, the first plant.

634
00:41:38,890 --> 00:41:39,560
So he was,

635
00:41:39,560 --> 00:41:44,240
he was also performing some kind
of scientific investigation with

636
00:41:44,240 --> 00:41:48,800
both theoretical and
experimental way of working.

637
00:41:49,730 --> 00:41:52,720
So the, what I'm doing, um,

638
00:41:53,680 --> 00:41:58,560
maybe is different from what
other people are doing, but, um,

639
00:41:59,230 --> 00:42:04,000
I, I think that there is some
kind of beauty which is inside

640
00:42:04,390 --> 00:42:07,880
nature. We are part of beauty as well.

641
00:42:08,210 --> 00:42:13,200
So when we try to understand
nature in something like,

642
00:42:14,010 --> 00:42:15,880
um, some physicists said,

643
00:42:16,130 --> 00:42:20,440
we are trying to find out
the beauty which is hidden

644
00:42:21,430 --> 00:42:25,800
inside nature. Um, and we
are trying to make it art.

645
00:42:26,290 --> 00:42:30,360
So maybe a key to understand the
art is like getting to the roots,

646
00:42:30,500 --> 00:42:33,720
but also [inaudible] um, the,

647
00:42:33,720 --> 00:42:37,880
the famous Spanish architect
Yes. Was thinking that way.

648
00:42:38,010 --> 00:42:39,960
So maybe we are just, uh,

649
00:42:40,040 --> 00:42:43,840
being inspired by nature at these
different levels, maybe <laugh>.

650
00:42:44,270 --> 00:42:46,400
Yeah. But there are a
few levels aren't there,

651
00:42:46,400 --> 00:42:49,560
between a Pangolin and the quantum realm?

652
00:42:49,660 --> 00:42:54,480
Yes, quantum music is something
relatively new. But, uh,

653
00:42:54,480 --> 00:42:55,960
I will say that, uh, this,

654
00:42:55,960 --> 00:43:00,960
this is part of this search
of this research of some

655
00:43:00,960 --> 00:43:02,400
kind of roots of beauty.

656
00:43:02,680 --> 00:43:07,640
There is something a bit more
tricky here because when we can,

657
00:43:07,690 --> 00:43:11,520
uh, see a tree, a man and animal,

658
00:43:11,590 --> 00:43:14,760
they belong to our day experience.

659
00:43:14,760 --> 00:43:18,760
Quantum does not because it's
something that we can measure.

660
00:43:18,850 --> 00:43:23,200
Of course we can think of
course, but we do not see panta.

661
00:43:23,810 --> 00:43:26,280
So something which is not intuitive,

662
00:43:27,110 --> 00:43:31,680
it's something that also
philosophically challenging our way of,

663
00:43:32,090 --> 00:43:32,610
um,

664
00:43:32,610 --> 00:43:37,120
of seeing the interaction
between the measuring subject

665
00:43:37,340 --> 00:43:41,480
and the measured world. So in this sense,

666
00:43:42,070 --> 00:43:46,880
when we have quantum music, we
cannot, uh, do, in my opinion,

667
00:43:47,310 --> 00:43:51,440
a direct mapping because
music is happening. Um,

668
00:43:52,050 --> 00:43:56,880
in classical physics, let's say like
that, we have longitudinal waves,

669
00:43:57,210 --> 00:44:00,160
we have some dimensional scale, and on,

670
00:44:00,400 --> 00:44:05,240
while the quantum is happening
in a, in another <laugh>, uh,

671
00:44:05,240 --> 00:44:07,840
another dimension completely
different. However,

672
00:44:09,050 --> 00:44:13,800
we can borrow something from
the quantum and bring in this

673
00:44:13,800 --> 00:44:18,600
information in the real realm
of music, for example. Um,

674
00:44:19,010 --> 00:44:22,600
we can adapt as I, as I made years ago,

675
00:44:22,630 --> 00:44:27,560
some criteria to major stuff
in the quantum domain to the

676
00:44:27,560 --> 00:44:32,080
musical domain. So considering
like finite time intervals,

677
00:44:32,080 --> 00:44:36,760
for example, we can use,
um, quantum computers,

678
00:44:36,760 --> 00:44:40,400
which are making, uh, measurement that we,

679
00:44:40,400 --> 00:44:43,920
we can perform measurement,
we can have a state,

680
00:44:44,090 --> 00:44:48,760
we can apply a measurement, we can
see what is the most like output.

681
00:44:48,760 --> 00:44:50,320
We have quantum noise,

682
00:44:50,930 --> 00:44:55,760
so we are getting a lot of
quantitative information and we

683
00:44:55,760 --> 00:45:00,480
can decide to map this
quantitative information toward

684
00:45:00,720 --> 00:45:01,553
sound.

685
00:45:02,020 --> 00:45:05,960
But this operation of
mapping is something that is

686
00:45:06,630 --> 00:45:09,240
like between art and science,

687
00:45:09,730 --> 00:45:14,000
because we have an information
from the quantum, for example,

688
00:45:14,000 --> 00:45:18,240
from computers, and the one that translate
into another kind of information,

689
00:45:18,380 --> 00:45:23,240
how the choice of how is
also an artistic choice.

690
00:45:23,850 --> 00:45:28,480
We might obtain a
sonification just to have,

691
00:45:29,050 --> 00:45:32,680
um, an idea which is we can make graphs.

692
00:45:33,250 --> 00:45:37,400
We have the output of a quantum
computation, we have a graph. Okay? The,

693
00:45:37,400 --> 00:45:41,880
the output with 0 0 0 is more
likely than the output with

694
00:45:41,880 --> 00:45:46,440
0 1 1. Okay? So we have a
graph with two different bars.

695
00:45:47,090 --> 00:45:51,680
We can translate the information into
sound. We might have a louder sound,

696
00:45:51,950 --> 00:45:52,960
a softer sound.

697
00:45:53,850 --> 00:45:57,520
So sonification can be
used in a scientific way,

698
00:45:58,020 --> 00:46:02,880
but we can use this information
I map into a competitive

699
00:46:02,880 --> 00:46:07,160
stuff. So in this sense, uh,

700
00:46:07,230 --> 00:46:11,840
I think that's a quantum use is
something that is starting to be

701
00:46:11,840 --> 00:46:13,240
developed right now.

702
00:46:13,470 --> 00:46:17,920
I think that we are only at the
beginning of this new world,

703
00:46:18,020 --> 00:46:18,853
I'd say.

704
00:46:19,060 --> 00:46:22,080
Can you tell me a bit about
your process as a composer?

705
00:46:22,320 --> 00:46:24,240
Where does inspiration come from.

706
00:46:24,240 --> 00:46:26,560
For you? Well, well, at least for me,

707
00:46:26,560 --> 00:46:31,360
it can work in very different ways
because I could be completely,

708
00:46:31,930 --> 00:46:34,920
uh, could be completely taken by,

709
00:46:34,920 --> 00:46:38,720
taken by an interesting
result. For example,

710
00:46:38,720 --> 00:46:41,160
I'm worked in a quantum
circuit, for example,

711
00:46:41,160 --> 00:46:45,720
for something in my work about
robotics and then say, okay,

712
00:46:45,720 --> 00:46:49,080
this very interest thing, how can, um,

713
00:46:49,780 --> 00:46:53,560
how may I use sounds to,

714
00:46:53,610 --> 00:46:57,440
to give an al auditor idea
of that I, so for example,

715
00:46:57,440 --> 00:47:02,440
can just set up some notes
and imagine a quantum

716
00:47:02,660 --> 00:47:05,160
not measure state as a court,

717
00:47:05,160 --> 00:47:09,280
then the measurement is
just giving one note. Also,

718
00:47:09,280 --> 00:47:11,400
the people did that are not everyone.

719
00:47:56,730 --> 00:47:57,563
In this sense,

720
00:47:57,830 --> 00:48:02,800
I can use music as a way to gain
a better understanding of what

721
00:48:02,800 --> 00:48:05,360
is going on in science. Um,

722
00:48:05,470 --> 00:48:09,840
I might also be part in a
more say, metaphorical way.

723
00:48:09,840 --> 00:48:14,840
Like is ago I wrote, uh, uh, maybe
it was supported for future, uh,

724
00:48:14,840 --> 00:48:19,080
uh, inspired by entanglement, but
it was kind of loosey inspiration.

725
00:48:19,790 --> 00:48:22,960
Just, uh, this idea of two, um,

726
00:48:22,970 --> 00:48:27,640
of a state which is composed by
parts which like locked together.

727
00:48:27,660 --> 00:48:29,160
You measure the other one,

728
00:48:29,160 --> 00:48:32,720
you force the other one
to get a specific measure.

729
00:49:44,680 --> 00:49:49,200
Other times I just compose
in a more free way,

730
00:49:49,310 --> 00:49:54,240
just all style, sit on the piano,
paper and pencil. You write a song,

731
00:49:54,620 --> 00:49:59,080
you can do that. And
uh, that's in the sense,

732
00:49:59,530 --> 00:50:01,840
uh, science can be a specific,

733
00:50:01,840 --> 00:50:06,600
quantum can be used at a
later time to, for example,

734
00:50:06,690 --> 00:50:10,960
to, um, to develop the musical material.

735
00:50:11,570 --> 00:50:16,120
As I said before, we can think of
objects and transformations between them.

736
00:50:16,850 --> 00:50:20,880
So for example, we have
a theme and we keep,

737
00:50:21,570 --> 00:50:26,000
um, modifying, transforming this
theme in a sequence of variation,

738
00:50:26,000 --> 00:50:28,150
which is something very classical.

739
00:50:28,450 --> 00:50:33,390
But we can also think of that
as a process which has a little

740
00:50:33,540 --> 00:50:35,630
memory. So little be little.

741
00:50:35,680 --> 00:50:40,670
We are like using the identity of
the theme we have at the end of the

742
00:50:40,670 --> 00:50:44,310
piece. We are left with a
metic style, for example,

743
00:50:44,750 --> 00:50:48,710
which is completely different
from the elements we started with.

744
00:50:49,430 --> 00:50:53,510
Sometimes I'm talking about
magnificent thing because they have a,

745
00:50:53,510 --> 00:50:55,630
a classic training. But, uh,

746
00:50:55,840 --> 00:51:00,470
we can work also with other musical
parameters and uh, play the same idea.

747
00:51:00,810 --> 00:51:05,710
For example, we can have
a mass of sound. So,

748
00:51:06,520 --> 00:51:09,030
uh, like, um, there,

749
00:51:09,030 --> 00:51:12,710
there are people we are working with
concrete music and not only who are

750
00:51:12,710 --> 00:51:13,950
working, for example, with timber,

751
00:51:13,950 --> 00:51:17,790
which could be also generated
electronically and so on.

752
00:51:18,010 --> 00:51:22,070
And then we work by taking away the sound,

753
00:51:22,070 --> 00:51:26,390
let's say like that. And we
can compare this operation,

754
00:51:27,070 --> 00:51:28,190
which is maybe,

755
00:51:28,670 --> 00:51:33,430
which might be compared with some kind
of subtractive syntheses. I said that.

756
00:51:33,890 --> 00:51:37,630
But we can have, uh, a bunch of
different sounds playing together.

757
00:51:37,980 --> 00:51:42,510
Then we do something and then
we are left with some one chord,

758
00:51:42,510 --> 00:51:46,990
only one chord. The some a
small part of this sound. Okay,

759
00:51:47,270 --> 00:51:49,790
but this could be compared with what,

760
00:51:50,060 --> 00:51:53,910
with the concept of destructive
measure in quantum mechanics.

761
00:51:54,810 --> 00:51:59,400
So, and we have a state then,

762
00:51:59,770 --> 00:52:01,320
uh, uh, physical system,

763
00:52:01,320 --> 00:52:06,000
then we force the system to
have just one value and all

764
00:52:06,000 --> 00:52:10,800
subsequent measurements, we have
that value. So in this sense,

765
00:52:10,900 --> 00:52:14,960
the quantum can enter
inside music not only

766
00:52:16,030 --> 00:52:20,560
a levels of precise
formulas at the levels of

767
00:52:20,890 --> 00:52:23,960
outputs of quantum computer, but even at,

768
00:52:24,230 --> 00:52:27,760
I think at a more ground
level of concepts.

769
00:52:28,330 --> 00:52:30,520
Because first of all, uh,

770
00:52:30,520 --> 00:52:35,520
I think part of the beauty of this kind
of physics is that something, as I said,

771
00:52:35,780 --> 00:52:40,680
not intuitive is something that is contin.
Even if you studied that for years,

772
00:52:40,680 --> 00:52:43,840
it's always challenging quantum mechanics.

773
00:52:43,840 --> 00:52:46,880
All I remember study many sago universe.

774
00:52:46,880 --> 00:52:50,720
Then I took Sarah crucial
advanced quantum mechanics,

775
00:52:50,720 --> 00:52:51,960
quantum fee theory,

776
00:52:52,240 --> 00:52:57,120
where you apply the quantization not only
to the energy, but also to the field.

777
00:52:57,910 --> 00:53:02,520
It's like having, uh, field
the nausea, which is made by,

778
00:53:03,010 --> 00:53:05,000
um, by particles, let's say that.

779
00:53:05,220 --> 00:53:10,080
And you extend all the mathematics over
in, over, which is quite fascinating.

780
00:53:10,080 --> 00:53:12,240
So they are really the challenging ideas.

781
00:53:12,820 --> 00:53:17,520
And I think that also this
idea can inspire art. Why not?

782
00:53:17,660 --> 00:53:19,080
Art is made of ideas.

783
00:53:19,550 --> 00:53:23,720
It's not important if you are
writing a p the piano with, uh,

784
00:53:23,720 --> 00:53:26,880
synthesize or whatever we
are thinking. First of.

785
00:53:26,880 --> 00:53:28,560
All, I hope you don't mind me asking,

786
00:53:28,580 --> 00:53:33,280
but is quantum music ever
going to be anything more than

787
00:53:33,280 --> 00:53:35,440
something that's, you know,

788
00:53:35,840 --> 00:53:40,400
interesting for people who are interested
in the intersection of science and

789
00:53:40,400 --> 00:53:44,040
music for composers, uh, and for,

790
00:53:44,040 --> 00:53:45,760
well just for a very niche audience?

791
00:53:46,250 --> 00:53:51,040
Ah, well that's a great
question. So I'm glad if, uh,

792
00:53:51,090 --> 00:53:54,960
we could, uh, talk again of this
question in the next 10 years,

793
00:53:54,960 --> 00:53:58,280
let's say like that. Because
I think that we are, we,

794
00:53:58,280 --> 00:54:02,480
at the beginning of this course, I see
a lot of enthusiasm, which is fine.

795
00:54:03,070 --> 00:54:08,040
I hope that that will last for
some time. I don't know yet.

796
00:54:08,140 --> 00:54:08,800
For now,

797
00:54:08,800 --> 00:54:13,680
it's kind of a restrictive
thing because usually there are

798
00:54:13,680 --> 00:54:18,400
either physicists or computer
scientists or composers or

799
00:54:18,400 --> 00:54:23,200
kind of a quantum superposition
of all these guys. Were trying to,

800
00:54:23,890 --> 00:54:25,960
um, see things together,

801
00:54:25,960 --> 00:54:30,720
which is good because I sometimes
I see compo composition can also

802
00:54:30,720 --> 00:54:33,640
be an act of an experiment. Um,

803
00:54:33,640 --> 00:54:38,480
you can either compose a
song in the style, it's that,

804
00:54:39,090 --> 00:54:43,280
or, uh, you can, uh, make, um, uh,

805
00:54:43,350 --> 00:54:48,200
more experimental study. So for now,
we have a lot of experimental works.

806
00:54:48,750 --> 00:54:51,400
Very interesting. We have, uh,

807
00:54:51,430 --> 00:54:56,160
some of these works also made
to the concerts. There are, um,

808
00:54:56,600 --> 00:55:01,520
works directly deriv derived
from fin um, quantum computers,

809
00:55:01,520 --> 00:55:05,880
which are very, very interesting.
Uh, remember the name right now.

810
00:55:05,900 --> 00:55:09,880
But that comes to mind
very, very interesting. Uh,

811
00:55:09,880 --> 00:55:14,080
musical works by, um,
professor Mirana, for example,

812
00:55:14,080 --> 00:55:18,360
and not only the several people
who work with that, okay,

813
00:55:18,360 --> 00:55:19,520
from now it's some GS three.

814
00:55:19,520 --> 00:55:23,760
So I will make distinction
between maybe three layers,

815
00:55:24,300 --> 00:55:27,320
the layer of, um,

816
00:55:29,070 --> 00:55:32,160
experiment. So you have something new,

817
00:55:32,180 --> 00:55:36,680
you wanna see what is going on, and you
make the experiment. And in this class,

818
00:55:36,680 --> 00:55:41,320
I also consider in my own
experiment, when I use Logic Gates,

819
00:55:41,700 --> 00:55:42,360
for example,

820
00:55:42,360 --> 00:55:46,760
to determine if we will have
some notes or some other ones

821
00:55:47,090 --> 00:55:50,840
as the response to some kind of
external info, this experiment,

822
00:55:51,110 --> 00:55:56,000
they could be nice to hear or not.
Uh, when I write experimental music,

823
00:55:56,000 --> 00:55:58,520
I don't always consider that nice to hear,

824
00:55:58,520 --> 00:56:03,480
but just maybe it could be nice to
see if it is interesting or not.

825
00:56:04,190 --> 00:56:05,800
Then, um,

826
00:56:06,150 --> 00:56:10,760
they can be the quantum applied
in a more systematic way

827
00:56:11,130 --> 00:56:13,600
to create a new genre of music.

828
00:56:14,150 --> 00:56:17,800
I think we are on the way there,
people who are going that direction,

829
00:56:17,800 --> 00:56:21,520
but I think that we are
still at the beginning, uh,

830
00:56:21,520 --> 00:56:23,520
of this world and, uh,

831
00:56:23,520 --> 00:56:28,320
personally I think that will require
one more thinkings about what we are

832
00:56:28,320 --> 00:56:30,720
taking from the quantum world. Okay.

833
00:56:30,900 --> 00:56:35,200
The other side is that we listen
to music because we like music.

834
00:56:35,770 --> 00:56:39,760
Uh, we can move the way music, we can
be comfort converted by music. We can,

835
00:56:39,760 --> 00:56:44,600
we have several different reasons
in the sense it's much harder to

836
00:56:44,600 --> 00:56:48,960
find out what is the impact
of the quantum world,

837
00:56:49,810 --> 00:56:54,760
um, regarding aesthetics of music.
I see. But that's, that's me.

838
00:56:55,250 --> 00:56:59,800
Um, I think that inside nature
there are some roots of beauty.

839
00:56:59,890 --> 00:57:04,560
We have to find them because we
might have perfect mathematics and

840
00:57:04,560 --> 00:57:08,840
perfectly bad music or vice
versa. So it's not given that,

841
00:57:09,570 --> 00:57:12,640
um, if we have some kind of math things,

842
00:57:13,170 --> 00:57:15,920
we will have some beautiful art.

843
00:57:16,120 --> 00:57:20,920
There are different use already
Hask was thinking about of

844
00:57:20,920 --> 00:57:25,400
the beauty music and it was like very
opposite to some kind of more rational

845
00:57:25,400 --> 00:57:29,800
thing. I don't think that way, but I
think that's important to understand.

846
00:57:30,430 --> 00:57:35,240
Some reason there are people in the
cognitive science who investigating

847
00:57:35,260 --> 00:57:38,680
why do we like what we
like, for example, uh,

848
00:57:38,770 --> 00:57:43,600
my way of seeing things that
we like music, there are
some, uh, some connection,

849
00:57:43,600 --> 00:57:45,400
for example, uh,

850
00:57:45,400 --> 00:57:50,240
with the images you create in the
mind of there is a kind of gestural

851
00:57:50,350 --> 00:57:54,560
connection. Like you
hear a very soft music,

852
00:57:54,660 --> 00:57:57,840
you think of a caressing
gesture. That that is my,

853
00:57:58,370 --> 00:58:03,330
if we were able to find out, um,

854
00:58:03,400 --> 00:58:08,370
some of the reason why a musical
piece is a beautiful musical

855
00:58:08,370 --> 00:58:12,490
piece and we are able to
formalize all the stuff

856
00:58:13,000 --> 00:58:14,370
with the quant,

857
00:58:14,370 --> 00:58:17,970
with the mathematics <inaudible>
that used for the quantum physics,

858
00:58:18,760 --> 00:58:21,530
then we can use the quantum
to make beautiful stuff.

859
00:58:22,200 --> 00:58:24,970
I don't think we are now at this point.

860
00:58:25,800 --> 00:58:30,090
That could be a research question.
Maybe we could never achieve that. But,

861
00:58:30,660 --> 00:58:33,090
uh, I think that could
be a nice challenge.

862
00:58:33,180 --> 00:58:35,210
Oh yeah, that, that
sounds very interesting.

863
00:58:35,320 --> 00:58:39,290
Yeah. <laugh>, more people could be
fascinated by science at this point.

864
00:58:39,440 --> 00:58:43,930
Well, it sounds like it may be sometime
before people are saying that quantum is

865
00:58:43,930 --> 00:58:44,763
massive,

866
00:58:45,270 --> 00:58:49,960
but I want to leave you with a
bit more of Maria's music entitled

867
00:58:50,170 --> 00:58:51,600
3D Underwater Robots.

868
00:58:51,670 --> 00:58:56,440
This is an experiment with computer
sounds and the sonification of quantum

869
00:58:56,440 --> 00:58:58,320
driven robotic movements.

870
00:59:04,650 --> 00:59:07,880
Quantum music is sometimes very short.

871
00:59:07,880 --> 00:59:12,200
Thank you very much to Maria and Philip
for talking to me for this episode of

872
00:59:12,200 --> 00:59:15,400
the Physics World Stories podcast.
You can find links to Maria's work,

873
00:59:15,400 --> 00:59:16,040
and of course,

874
00:59:16,040 --> 00:59:20,320
Philip's work on the article
that accompanies this
podcast on the physics world

875
00:59:20,320 --> 00:59:22,600
website physics world.com.

876
00:59:22,870 --> 00:59:26,640
Thanks again to FIFA Vacuum for
sponsoring this episode of the podcast.

877
00:59:27,310 --> 00:59:30,320
FIFA Vacuum provides all
types of vacuum equipment,

878
00:59:30,320 --> 00:59:34,120
including hybrid and magnetically
levitated, turbo pumps,

879
00:59:34,190 --> 00:59:36,840
leak detectors and analysis equipment,

880
00:59:37,210 --> 00:59:39,440
as well as vacuum chambers and systems.

881
00:59:40,020 --> 00:59:44,920
You can explore all of its
products@pfahyphenvacuum.com.

882
00:59:45,160 --> 00:59:49,280
We'll be back next month with something
else from this wonderful world of

883
00:59:49,280 --> 00:59:51,920
physics. And thank you
very much for listening.

884
00:59:55,970 --> 00:59:56,720
Physics.

885
00:59:56,720 --> 00:59:57,280
World.