Tokyo-based composer Sami Elu has constructed a fascinating keyboard from recycled instruments.

Most people will have played the piece chopsticks on the piano at some point in their life, but now Tokyo-based composer, inventor and instrumentalist Sami Elu has built a piano made from chopsticks. The Boston-born musician, currently living in Japan, has built a suite of instruments over the years, and this is only the latest iteration of the chopsticks piano.

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The keyboard – constructed from recycled instruments – allows Elu to form a kind of one-man-band, plucking strings, hitting chopstick-keys that vibrate piano wire and activating percussion instruments with his feet. The musical effect is both distinctive and surprisingly soothing, creating a sound-world – unsurprisingly – not unlike that of a prepared piano.

Elu doesn’t limit himself to ‘pianos’ – his website displays a wealth of home-made percussion instruments, keyboards and “stringy things.”