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Quanta in Sound, the Sound of Quanta: A Voice-Informed Quantum Theoretical Perspective on Sound

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Quantum Computing in the Arts and Humanities

Abstract

Humans have a privileged, embodied way to explore the world of sounds, through vocal imitation. The Quantum Vocal Theory of Sounds (QVTS) starts from the assumption that any sound can be expressed and described as the evolution of a superposition of vocal states, i.e., phonation, turbulence, and supraglottal myoelastic vibrations. The postulates of quantum mechanics, with the notions of observable, measurement, and time evolution of state, provide a model that can be used for sound processing, in both directions of analysis and synthesis. QVTS can give a quantum-theoretic explanation to some auditory streaming phenomena, eventually leading to practical solutions of relevant sound-processing problems, or it can be creatively exploited to manipulate superpositions of sonic elements. Perhaps more importantly, QVTS may be a fertile ground to host a dialogue between physicists, computer scientists, musicians, and sound designers, possibly giving us unheard manifestations of human creativity.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    A wavelet is a wave-like oscillation under a finite temporal envelope.

  2. 2.

    In quantum computing, the vectors of the computational basis are normally called \(\mathinner {|{0}\rangle }\) and \(\mathinner {|{1}\rangle }\).

  3. 3.

    In describing the spin eigenstates, the symbols \(\mathinner {|{i}\rangle }\) and \(\mathinner {|{o}\rangle }\) are often used, to denote the in–out direction.

  4. 4.

    It is one of the example vocal sounds considered in Rocchesso et al. (2016), and taken from Newman (2004).

  5. 5.

    The feature extractors are found in the Essentia library (Bogdanov et al. 2013).

  6. 6.

    Sample rate \(44100 \mathrm {Hz}\), window size 2048, transform size 4096, hop size 1024.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. European Centre for Living Technology (ECLT), Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, Venice, Italy

    Maria Mannone

  2. Department of Mathematics and Computer Sciences, University of Palermo, Palermo, Italy

    Maria Mannone & Davide Rocchesso

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  1. Maria Mannone
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  2. Davide Rocchesso
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Correspondence to Maria Mannone .

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

    Eduardo Reck Miranda

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Mannone, M., Rocchesso, D. (2022). Quanta in Sound, the Sound of Quanta: A Voice-Informed Quantum Theoretical Perspective on Sound. In: Miranda, E.R. (eds) Quantum Computing in the Arts and Humanities. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-95538-0_6

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