Ney

Ney
 

Ney (Nay) or Neye-haft-band is the main wind instrument of Persian classical music. The term Neye-haft-band is a combination of Ney as grass pipe and haft-band, which refers to seven anti knots (also 6 knots). The earliest pieces of evidence of Ney go back to at least 5 thousand years ago between archeological discoveries in Egypt. Nowadays, many types of Ney in Iran, other parts of the Middle East, and North Africa are known, such as Shemshal (Kurdish Ney), Nel (Baluch ney), and Balaban (Turkish Ney).
During the 13th and 14th centuries, Ney became a mystic symbol of humans in Sufi poems. Molana Jalaluddin Balkhi (Rumi, 1207-1273) in Masnavi says:
Listen to the Ney and how it is complaining
And how it tells the story of separation (from the divine realm)
Since I have severed from my original reed bed
My loud whimper made men and women cry
Early Persian Ney was played by lips in the past, similar to the Arabian and Turkish styles of playing Ney. Adopting Turkaman’s technique of playing Ney for Persian Ney by placing it against upper teeth was a challenging technique, but it had higher sonority and richer sound for Ney. Nowadays, all Persian Ney players use this technique. Hassan Kasaei is known as the father of modern Iranian Ney playing. For the first time, he played many Dasghahs of Persian traditional music by Ney, and the changes he made in the construction and playing style of this instrument changed the Ney from an enclosed instrument to one of the main instruments of Iranian music performances.
Modern Ney has six holes, and its note range is almost 2.5 octaves. Ney has fixed tuning, and changing its length prepares different tuning for the other parts of Persian classical music.