I’m sure there are many instruments around the world which I haven’t heard of or seen yet, but I guess all of these are derivatives of the common ones I know. The guitar from Guitar Hero? Nope… not really innovative, I’ve seen guitars with keys before. How about the Air Piano?

Ubergizmo tells us that the Air Piano was created by Omer Yosha, who took an electronic piano and transformed it to a degree where the instrument allows users to play it without physically touching anything.

In order to make the Air Piano work, Yosha integrated some sort of infrared technology to detect the user’s hand movements over it. This way, the instrument plays the appropriate note based on where the movement came from. The piano is able to calculate movements horizontally as well as based on height degrees. Moreover, the piano is able to detect if the hand is hovering over the same spot, and will sustain the note accordingly. The height fact is particularly useful when users want to change octaves.

Now that’s what I call an innovative way to play the piano and I’d really want to see new ways of playing other instruments, too. Here’s a short clip demoing how the piano works: