The nai (archaic: muscal) is a

Romania Romania ( ; ro, România ) is a country located at the crossroads of Central Europe, Central, Eastern Europe, Eastern, and Southeast Europe, Southeastern Europe. It borders Bulgaria to the south, Ukraine to the north, Hungary to the west, S ...

diatonic Diatonic and chromatic are terms in music theory that are most often used to characterize Scale (music), scales, and are also applied to musical instruments, Interval (music), intervals, Chord (music), chords, Musical note, notes, musical sty ...

pan flute A pan flute (also known as panpipes or syrinx) is a musical instrument based on the principle of the closed tube, consisting of multiple pipes of gradually increasing length (and occasionally girth). Multiple varieties of pan flutes have been ...

used since the 17th century in a lot of genres.

Structure

The nai has usually at least 20 pipes made of

bamboo Bamboos are a diverse group of evergreen perennial flowering plants making up the subfamily Bambusoideae of the grass family Poaceae. Giant bamboos are the largest members of the grass family. The origin of the word "bamboo" is uncertain, bu ...

reed Reed or Reeds may refer to: Science, technology, biology, and medicine * Reed bird (disambiguation) * Reed pen, writing implement in use since ancient times * Reed (plant), one of several tall, grass-like wetland plants of the order Poales * ...

. They are arranged in a curved array, allowing a greater speed of play. Generally the longer, lower pipes are on the right. The pitch of each pipe is adjusted with

beeswax Beeswax (''cera alba'') is a natural wax produced by honey bees of the genus ''Apis''. The wax is formed into scales by eight wax-producing glands in the abdominal segments of worker bees, which discard it in or at the hive. The hive workers ...

; usually nais are tuned in G for Romanian folk music, or in C for classical. Traditional Romanian pan flutes have tubes with varying diameters which go from wide to narrow as you go up the scale, to maintain the volume/length ratio of the tube and therefore produce the best consistent tone quality.

Famous nai players

Damian Drăghici Damian Drăghici (born 31 March 1970, Bucharest) is a Romanian musician of Romani origin. He is a musician, best known as the leadear of the Damian and Brothers band and a nai player and is a noted exponent of this instrument in the world of ...

Gheorghe Zamfir Gheorghe Zamfir (; born April 6, 1941) is a Romanian nai (pan flute) musician. Zamfir is known for playing an expanded version of normally 20-pipe nai, with 22, 25, 28 or even 30 pipes, to increase its range, and obtaining as many as eight ove ...

Dana Dragomir Dana Dragomir (; born 22 July 1964) is a Swedish pan flute musician and composer of Romanian origin. She is also known under the name Pandana (combination between the Greek god Pan and her name). Dana Dragomir is best known for her interpretati ...

* Fănică Luca * Constantin Moscovicibr>Madalin Luca

References

External links

panflute.ca Kevin Budd's Pan Flute pages
{{DEFAULTSORT:Nai (Pan Flute) Panpipes Romanian musical instruments