Exploring quantum tonality

Abstract This article reports on a series of mathe-musical experiments based on the dynamic behavior of a musical quantum model of C-major tonality. The model reinterprets empirical pitch-class profiles of tonal attraction in C-major as the probability wave function of a one-dimensional stationary ground state within a perturbed quantum harmonic oscillator. By solving the associated time-dependent Schrödinger equation, we assign specific temporal evolutions to any given initial state. We explore two distinct sonification strategies: First, the time-evolutions of various initial states—in particular deflections of the ground state and higher excited states—are used to drive a stroboscopic stratification of musical hierarchies and to set them into Minimal Music-inspired travelling note patterns. Secondly, we implement rich continuous sound processes that rely on the uninterrupted flow of the wave function. Crucially, these approaches bypass the simulation of quantum measurements; instead, they leverage the full theoretical information of the wave function’s evolution.