The ''mijwiz'' (,

DIN DIN or Din or din may refer to: People and language * Din (name), people with the name * Dīn, an Arabic word with three general senses: judgment, custom, and religion from which the name originates * Dinka language (ISO 639 code: din), spoken ...

: ''miǧwiz'') is a traditional Middle East

musical instrument A musical instrument is a device created or adapted to make Music, musical sounds. In principle, any object that produces sound can be considered a musical instrument—it is through purpose that the object becomes a musical instrument. A person ...

popular in

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Syria Syria, officially the Syrian Arab Republic, is a country in West Asia located in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Levant. It borders the Mediterranean Sea to the west, Turkey to Syria–Turkey border, the north, Iraq to Iraq–Syria border, t ...

Lebanon Lebanon, officially the Republic of Lebanon, is a country in the Levant region of West Asia. Situated at the crossroads of the Mediterranean Basin and the Arabian Peninsula, it is bordered by Syria to the north and east, Israel to the south ...

and

Jordan Jordan, officially the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, is a country in the Southern Levant region of West Asia. Jordan is bordered by Syria to the north, Iraq to the east, Saudi Arabia to the south, and Israel and the occupied Palestinian ter ...

. Its name in

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means "dual", because of its consisting of two, short, bamboo pipes with reed tips put together, making the mijwiz a double-pipe,

single-reed A single-reed instrument is a woodwind instrument that uses only one reed to produce sound. The very earliest single-reed instruments were documented in ancient Egypt, ancient Greece as well as the Middle East, and the Roman Empire. The earliest ...

woodwind instrument Woodwind instruments are a family of musical instruments within the greater category of wind instruments. Common examples include flute, clarinet, oboe, bassoon, and saxophone. There are two main types of woodwind instruments: flutes and ...

Background

The mijwiz consists of two pipes of equal length; each pipe has around five or six small holes for fingering. It requires a special playing technique known as "

circular breathing Circular breathing is a breathing technique used by players of some wind instruments to produce a continuous tone without interruption. It is accomplished by inhaling through the nose while simultaneously pushing air out through the mouth usi ...

," which is tricky but produces a continuous tone, without pausing to take a breath. The mijwiz is played in the Levant as an accompaniment to either belly dancing or dabke, the folkloric

line dance A line dance is a choreographed dance in which a group of people dance along to a repeating sequence of dance step, steps while arranged in one or more lines or rows. These lines usually face all in the same direction, or less commonly face each ot ...

of the Levant. The mijwiz is most popular today in the Levant (Palestine, Lebanon, Syria and Jordan). Many popular folk songs either include the mijwiz on recordings, or include the instrument's name in the song's lyrics. One example is the famous Lebanese dabke song "Jeeb el Mijwiz ya Abboud" () by the singer

Sabah Sabah () is a States and federal territories of Malaysia, state of Malaysia located in northern Borneo, in the region of East Malaysia. Sabah has land borders with the Malaysian state of Sarawak to the southwest and Indonesia's North Kalima ...

. The mijwiz is also related to the arghul (or yarghoul), which consists of one short pipe with five to six holes and a longer pipe joined to it just like the mijwiz and produces a very similar sound to it. The mijwiz like the argoul is related to ancestor of some types of

bagpipe Bagpipes are a woodwind instrument using enclosed reeds fed from a constant reservoir of air in the form of a bag. The Great Highland bagpipes are well known, but people have played bagpipes for centuries throughout large parts of Europe, No ...

s. However, in the case of the mijwiz, the cheeks of the player with their circular breathing act like the bag that contains the air in a bagpipe.

References

Single-reed instruments Arabic musical instruments {{SingleReed-instrument-stub

Background

See also

References