Qubais Reed Ghazala explains how he builds new kinds of instruments by carefully bending, twisting, or otherwise deforming or even breaking things that were designed to be other than what Ghazala eventually had in mind for them. He wrote a study:
“The Folk Music of Chance Electronics: Circuit-Bending the Modern Coconut,” Qubais Reed Ghazala, Leonardo Music Journal, December 2004, Vol. 14, Pages 97-104. Ghazala writes:
The author describes the philosophy and art of circuit-bending: shorting out conventional electronic devices to reveal unexpected sound and music. Starting from his first foray into chance electronics during his junior high school years, he details both his method of working and the wealth of instruments that have resulted.
In this video, he demonstrates: