Check this out: The Sound of Touch is an instrument for real-time capture and physical stimulation of digital sound samples, using a specially constructed wand and any physical material.

The hand-held wand can be used to (1) record sound, then (2) brush, scrape, strike or otherwise physically manipulate this sound against physical objects.

These actions produce sound in a manner that leverages peoples existing intuitions about sonic properties of physical materials. The Sound of Touch permits real-time exploitation of the sonic properties of a physical environment, to achieve a rich and expressive control of digital sound that is not typically possible in electronic sound synthesis and control systems.

via David Merrill, MIT