Classically trained composer, multi-instrumentalist and singer Imogen Heap finds her muse in unlikely places.

Her earliest exposure to electronic composition came when an exasperated music teacher exiled her to a back room full of neglected digital gear, where she discovered her under-the-hood aptitude for getting strange sounds out of arcane electronics.

Since then, she’s mined sonic mystery from sources ranging from cardboard tubes to cheap samplers — not to mention her own vocal cords.

Imogen Heap plays in this TED-talk a powerful stripped-down version of Wait It Out from her new record Ellipse.

Click here for her European Tour in 2010.