Over the last few days, I’ve been playing with creating sheet music using a four (4) qubit circuit. Quantum music generation is a cool sub field emerging within the quantum computing world and it happens to resonate within me. I’m using pytket as my python package to create and optimize quantum circuits and when I run the entire music generator on IBM’s simulated quantum computer, I get excellent results.
However, using Azure quantum, things don’t work as well. The circuit “works” but returns zeros for each measurement. Maybe it’s because of noise, but I am using Quantinuum’s, “quantinuum.sim.h1-1sc” simulator as my backend and I figured that since pytket is a Quantinuum product, it would work natively. But it doesn’t.

I guess that’s the thing about quantum computing: it’s hard to know what to expect. It’s such a weird field that I really have no clue what’s supposed to happen from run to run. Also, if I wanted to use a different quantum computer, I’d have to build the circuit a little differently and that would be a whole new pain. As of yet, there isn’t a “standard” for quantum computers and there isn’t a whole lot of sharing going on, as far as I can tell. It’s the computing wild west and I think that’s also what makes it exciting and filled with potential.

I believe, with all that I am, that quantum computing will be an economic driver for New Mexico. I really want it to become an economic driver for Santa Fe. But as of right now, it’s hard to discuss quantum computing without getting into seemingly esoteric topics and concepts. It’s a whole different set of behaviors and ideas than classical computing and it’s probably going to take time for quantum computing to deliver on its immense promise.

As for my own explorations, I am using the four (4) qubit circuit I built to generate MIDI notes. I then print the sheet music using Musescore and try to learn it. Sometimes, the music is actual music, while other times, it’s noise. Either way, though, it’s fun for me and I get to learn how to actually use qubits. There’s a lot going on within the quantum computing domain. I want to understand as much as I can about it all. Without actually coding qubit circuits and then using them somehow, I wouldn’t be able to really understand their operations.

At some point, I’ll get my music generator to run, correctly, on an actual quantum computer. But until then, I’ll keep coding,playing, andfiguring our this quantum computing stuff. Maybe I’ll even find someone who could help…