Ney

Ney

Persian ney with six holes (one on the back)
Ancient
Classification	End-blown
Playing range

The ney (Persian: Ney/نی), is an end-blown flute that figures prominently in Egyptian Music, Persian music, Turkish music, Jewish music and Arabic music. In some of these musical traditions, it is the only wind instrument used. The ney has been played continually for 4,500–5,000 years, dating back to ancient Egypt,^[1] making it one of the oldest musical instruments still in use.^[2]

The Arabic ney consists of a hollow cylinder with finger-holes and it is played without any mouthpiece. Unlike the Turkish ney that sometimes have a brass, horn, or plastic mouthpiece is placed at the top to protect the wood to produce a steeper sound, and protect it from damage, with a better edge to blow on. The ney consists of a piece of hollow cane or giant reed with five or six finger holes and one thumb hole. Modern neys may instead be made of metal or plastic tubing. The pitch of the ney varies depending on the region and the finger arrangement. A highly skilled ney player, called neyzen, can reach more than three octaves, though it is more common to have several "helper" neys to cover different pitch ranges or to facilitate playing technically difficult passages in other dastgahs or maqams.

In Romanian, this instrument is called "fluier", the word nai^[3] is applied to a curved pan flute while an end-blown flute resembling the Persian ney is referred to as caval.^[4]