Physical Reservoir Computing in a Music Hall Experiment

Abstract

Music is a complex vibratory structure that evolves temporally and, while it has been studied for centuries, both quantitatively and qualitatively, it has seldom been studied under the lens of computer science and information theory. Further, while much research has been devoted to measuring and optimizing the acoustics of music venues, the computational ability of these spaces has never been explored. Using physical reservoir computing, this article presents an experimental verification that a music hall has computational ability. Two experimental setups are explored: one has a single speaker and information is sent sequentially and another has two speakers and information is sent simultaneously. Both of these exhibit qualitatively similar results. Thus, music might be, at least in part, a computational experience. The findings of this article could provide quantitative clues for the upper limit of tactus in music by considering the computational ability of the music hall. To the authors’ knowledge, this is the first time that a music hall has been utilized as a computational resource. Moreover, the computational ability of musical structures provides another tool to understand the complex relationship between music, vibrations, and human perception.