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Cellular Automata Music Composition: From Classical to Quantum

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Quantum Computer Music

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Abstract

We are interested in developing cellular automata systems to support the creation of original music. Cellular automata are of interest to musicians because they generate visual patterns that can be translated into musical ones. It could be said that cellular automata evolve time-based patterns, resembling how composers sometimes develop variations on musical forms. Emerging quantum technology is already opening new avenues for exploring musical composition using quantum cellular automata. The chapter begins with a brief introduction to cellular automata focusing on one-dimensional and two-dimensional discrete automata for classical computing. It briefly shows how they can be leveraged to generate music. Then, it moves on to quantum cellular automata. To develop a technique that is meaningfully non-classical, we use partitioned quantum cellular automata (PQCA) instead of regular, classical cellular automata. PQCA are intrinsically universal, capable of simulating all of the various quantum extensions of cellular automata that have been proposed to date. After an introduction to PQCA, the chapter presents the methods we have been developing for generating music with PQCA and shows practical examples.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    The meaning of ‘discrete’ here is that space, time and properties of the automata can have only a finite, countable number of states.

  2. 2.

    To create a cellular automaton the transition function must know how to act on every combination of states. We have only stated one of the rules used in our example automaton.

  3. 3.

    But note, this is a subtly different notion of universal to the one about to be discussed below.

  4. 4.

    This music was not generated from the output shown in Fig. 6.17. It comes for a different run of 20 cycles.

  5. 5.

    Of course, you, the user, are free to make your own choices.

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Acknowledgements

This project was funded by the QuTune Project. QuTune kick-started in the Spring of 2021 thanks to funding kindly provided by the UK National Quantum Technologies Programme’s QCS Hub: [https://iccmr-quantum.github.io/].

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  1. ICCMR, University of Plymouth, Plymouth, UK

    Eduardo Reck Miranda & Hector Miller-Bakewell

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  1. Eduardo Reck Miranda
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  2. Hector Miller-Bakewell
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Correspondence to Eduardo Reck Miranda .

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  1. Interdisciplinary Centre for Computer Music Research, University of Plymouth, Plymouth, UK

    Eduardo Reck Miranda

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Miranda, E.R., Miller-Bakewell, H. (2022). Cellular Automata Music Composition: From Classical to Quantum. In: Miranda, E.R. (eds) Quantum Computer Music. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-13909-3_6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-13909-3_6

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