This is the first quantum computer music algorithm and gives unprecedented insight into the mysterious world of quantum parallelism. This music was recorded live as a D-Wave 2X quantum computer played harmonies. It was created using the algorithm qharmony that runs on a laptop and a D-Wave 2X quantum computer. The laptop sends notes to the quantum computer to harmonize, the D-Wave returns possible chords. The laptop combines all the possible chords into a single "superposition" chord that represents the superposition of solutions to the harmony problem from inside the quantum computer. Some say it represents chords across multiple universes coming together to make a single super-chord. 

Quantum Computer Creates Superposition Harmonies Live

The emotional positivity was computer analyzed in Bowie's singles' lyrics over the whole of his career. These were mapped onto musical pitches and turned into this hyper-speed piano track. Multiple sonifications are used as building blocks to make the track. Composed by Alexis Kirke 
Premiered at Port Eliot Festival 2016 in partnership with Plymouth University.
Part of "The Sonification of David Bowie's Career" by Alexis Kirke and Martyn Ware

Piano Sonification of David Bowie's Single Lyrical Emotional Positivity 1960s-2010s

Quantummelharm2

Alexis chats with Fitz live on BBC Radio Devon about the BPI's announcement on growth of music streaming

Alexis chats with Fitz about the BPI's announcement on growth of music streaming

Music for the dance floor. The bass line was composed using the qgMuse Grover-based quantum algorithm running on the ibmqx4 quantum computer. The chords were composed from sending bassline notes to qHarmony - a quantum algorithm for the D-Wave 2X, running on the University of Southern California's LA installation.

Dance floor music generated with Quantum Computers: IBM and D-Wave 2X

Melody Generated using Grover's Algorithm on ibmqx4 and harmonised using a D-Wave 2X

Composed by Alexis Kirke, performed by Ensemble Bash.

In 1974, a coded message was sent to a distant star cluster in the hope it might be picked up and deciphered by intelligent extra-terrestrial life.

The Arecibo message included 1,679 binary digits spelling out the numbers one to 10, details of the structure of DNA, and information indicating the position of Earth within the solar system.

Developed by, and sent from, the Puerto Rican observatory of the same name it will take just shy of 25,000 light years to reach its intended target.

But now, just over four decades since the message was created, it will form the foundations of an exclusive musical performance at the Peninsula Arts Contemporary Music Festival, taking place at the University of Plymouth from March 2-4, 2018.

Conceived by Dr Alexis Kirke, the piece – also titled Arecibo – uses the marimba as its main instrument and will then incorporate different musical elements to represent the seven sections of the original messages.

Dr Kirke, Senior Research Fellow within the University’s Interdisciplinary Centre for Computer Music Research (ICCMR), said: 

“The Arecibo message was an outstanding piece of experimental science designed to demonstrate what humans can actually achieve. It was created by some of the great scientific communicators of the 1970s to give an insight into our planet and the ways of life on Earth.

“By decoding the message and then recoding it as music, I hope to open it up to a whole new audience to help them appreciate what those scientists were trying to achieve. I guess there is also the chance that, some day, it too could be used to try and communicate with extra-terrestrial life to show them the marvels of life on Earth.”

Arecibo builds on Dr Kirke’s existing body of experimental work, which has included transforming the University’s state-of-the-art wave tank into a percussion instrument.

He also worked with the Head of Behavioural and Quantitative Finance at Barclays to create a ‘reality opera’ inspired by the ebb and flow of emotion and money on a stock trading floor, collaborated with Heaven 17 and Human League founder Martyn Ware to transform David Bowie’s music and success into new compositions, and fitted audience members with sensors to create a new take on the plays of William Shakespeare.

Ensemble Bash - Arecibo

Sonification of the Bloch Sphere states using code by Alexis Kirke with underlying snapshotted circuit by Chen Hao.
At each point in a calculation on a single qubit, after each of 5 gates, a snapshot is taken from the IBM simulator, and mapped onto the bloch sphere. These angles are then turned into sound, and create the low  bleeping loop that pervades most of the dance track.
This code was created during the IBM Qiskit Camp 2019.

Qubit Snapshot

These ambient sonifications were created using code written by Alexis Kirke during Qiskit Camp 2019. There are two main layers to the sonification harmony: one is a Grover algorithm circuit and one is a Teleportation algorithm circuit. Both are implemented using IBM QASM code. At each point in each circuit, the wavefunction is collapsed to create 8 note musical chords representing the qubit statistics. The loudness of each note in the chord is a non-linear function of the 8 possible count outputs from a 3 qubit algorithm. So the first chord is the empty circuit, the second is a Hadamard superposition, the third is the Hadamard followed by the next step of circuit elements following that, and so on cumulatively until the final circuit output. This creates a cumulative sonic representation of elements of the circuit functionality. It aims to sonically characterise the circuit. The Grover circuit sonified can be seen in Alexis Kirke's paper here:
https://arxiv.org/abs/1902.04237

Ambient Quantum Algorithms

Distinction (Excerpt) Commissioned for 150th Anniversary of University of Plymouth.
For Mezzo-soprano and percussion.
Performed by Juliette Pochin (https://www.morganpochin.com/27/Juliette-Pochin)
Music by Alexis Kirke
Words by Samuel Taylor Coleridge

In the background is a multi-agent system running on a computer that detects Juliette's singing and responds dynamically with the sound of various sea creatures recorded from the deep.

Distinction (Excerpt) Commissioned for 150th Anniversary of University of Plymouth

"Teleporting from Westeros" (first two movements) - Quantum Computer Electronic music. World's First Live Gate-based performance using hardware. Recorded live, so some clipping.

Today (Thursday 2 May) soon after 11am EST (4pm UK time) there was a live streaming electronic music performance "Teleporting from Westeros" using the MRIq hybrid quantum/classical multi-agent system on the Melbourne Q14 quantum computer. The composition is based on variations of the Game of Thrones main theme. MRIq teleports a superposition of my playing and of a classical computer music algorithm to a quantum agent that applies two Grovers to parts of the melody before it is observed and rendered in MIDI to accompany my playing in real-time. The streaming page was: http://mixlr.com/alexiskirke/

In front a live audience and a streaming audience, this was the world' first live gate-based quantum computer interactive performance - including the use of the quantum speed-up via Grover's algorithm, and quantum communications to enable a multi-agent system. Grover's algorithm reference: https://arxiv.org/abs/1902.04237

"Teleporting from Westeros" - First Live Quantum Computer Electronic music

Open Outcry Overture, following by some sung Orders 
Elysian Singers & Cellist Joseph Spooner

Open Outcry by Alexis Kirke & Greg B. Davies, directed by Alessandro Talevi 
Sponsored by Barclays, in partnership with Plymouth University.

In an increasingly digital world, there are still major international markets in which trading is done by shouting and waving – known as open outcry trading. To gain an understanding of the market, one does not need to employ advanced statistical analysis algorithms. Simply stand in the room like a member of an audience watching a show. Look at the faces of the traders; listen to the sounds of their voices. Is the trading floor roaring or silent? Do you sense fear or jubilation? On 15th November 2012 at Mansion House in the City of London, you will be an audience member for a unique incarnation of a trading floor. One in which traders can still make and lose money, and one in which they still use hand signals and their voices to make trades. However, on 15th November, the traders will sing for their money. The market’s emotions will be heard in the music they produce and in the harmonies they create together. With all the unpredictability of the real market, this performance will be one of a kind. None of us knows precisely what the market will do or how the traders will sing. This is up to them.

AlexisKirke

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