It varies greatly from one album to another and with time. His melancholic music and composing techniques mix classical and folk music elements with pop and rock ones. His delicate but deeply emotional style has been linked to Frédéric Chopin and the other great masters of Romantic music, and also to Erik Satie, the colourful figure of the early 20th century Parisian avant-garde whose work was a precursor to later artistic movements such as minimalism, repetitive music, and the Theatre of the Absurd. Tiersen is also compared to one of the most influential composers of the late 20th century, the American minimalism, classical–contemporary classical, and ambient music composer Philip Glass, and to British minimalist music composer, pianist, librettist and musicologist Michael Nyman, known for the many film scores he wrote during his lengthy career and who is the reason for Tiersen to be often called the Gallic Michael Nyman. Tiersen started playing the piano and the violin at a young age. In 1983, at the age of thirteen, he broke his violin and bought an electric guitar. Tiersen only returned to his beginnings instrument years later, after searching for string sounds to sample. For his music albums, Tiersen composes and makes arrangements incorporating many instruments, including keyboards such as the piano, electric piano, Fender Rhodes, organs, harpsichord, Bontempi and toy pianos, Korg and Moog synthesizers, Mellotron, piano accordions and melodica, strings as the violin, viola, violone and the cello, different types of electric, acoustic or bass guitars, mandolin, banjo, ukulele, bouzouki and oud, brasses, like horns, and woodwind instruments such as the saxophone, clarinet, bassoon, pipe, oboe and the flute, percussions like drums, vibraphone, marimba, tubular bells, tom, cymbal, glockenspiel and tam-tam, or the sounds produced by Leslie speaker, music box, carillons, typewriters, cooking vessels, chairs, a car or a bicycle wheel. Tiersen plays all of these instruments himself either in the studio or on a live set. Film scores Tiersen's ability to compose music that can be easily used for film scores was evident from the beginning. All tracks from his debut album, La Valse des monstres, were conceived for stage adaptations and plays. The title track of his second album, Rue des cascades, was used for The Dreamlife of Angels by Erick Zonca, and several tracks from both albums plus three songs from Le Phare are featured on the soundtrack to Jean-Pierre Jeunet's film Amélie. Another track form