The Dozaleh (Persian: دوزَله) is an

Iran Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI) and also known as Persia, is a country in West Asia. It borders Iraq to the west, Turkey, Azerbaijan, and Armenia to the northwest, the Caspian Sea to the north, Turkmenistan to the nort ...

ian folk instrument. The dozaleh is made of two

pipes Pipe(s), PIPE(S) or piping may refer to: Objects * Pipe (fluid conveyance), a hollow cylinder following certain dimension rules ** Piping, the use of pipes in industry * Smoking pipe ** Tobacco pipe * Half-pipe and quarter pipe, semi-circu ...

. One of them produces

melody A melody (), also tune, voice, or line, is a linear succession of musical tones that the listener perceives as a single entity. In its most literal sense, a melody is a combination of Pitch (music), pitch and rhythm, while more figurativel ...

and the other

harmony In music, harmony is the concept of combining different sounds in order to create new, distinct musical ideas. Theories of harmony seek to describe or explain the effects created by distinct pitches or tones coinciding with one another; harm ...

. It sounds like a

Ney-anbān Ney-anbān (, numerous Latin spellings), is a type of bagpipe which is popular in southern Iran, especially around Bushehr. The term ''ney-anban'' literally means "bag pipe", - ''Nai, signifies a reed, pipe, &c, and Anban or Anbanah, a bag made ...

and it is very dynamic. The instrument is played in the

Middle East The Middle East (term originally coined in English language) is a geopolitical region encompassing the Arabian Peninsula, the Levant, Turkey, Egypt, Iran, and Iraq. The term came into widespread usage by the United Kingdom and western Eur ...

among the

Kurdish Kurdish may refer to: *Kurds or Kurdish people *Kurdish language ** Northern Kurdish (Kurmanji) **Central Kurdish (Sorani) **Southern Kurdish ** Laki Kurdish *Kurdish alphabets *Kurdistan, the land of the Kurdish people which includes: **Southern ...

people, and further east it is included in the music traditions of the Tajik and Uzbek peoples.

Names

The instrument is called Dozaleh (دو زَله) in Iran, from zal (زَل), the Persian word for the stem of the zal reed. The instrument goes by a variety of names in Iran. It is known as ''Jannati'' (Persian, "pair": جفتی) in Hormozgan, ''Do Ney'' (Persian, "two reeds": دو نی) in Lorestan, ''Do Sazeh'' (Persian, "two structures": دو سازه) in South Khorasan Province, and ''Ghoshmeh'' (Persian: قوشمه) among Khorasan's Kurdish people. Ghoshmeh may have come from the tradition of making the instruments from the bones of birds, although one linguist suggests other possibilities, including "pair."

Ghoshmeh

file:Ghoshmeh.jpg, Ghoshmeh. (قشمه استخوانی "Bone ghoshmeh"). Instrument made from bird bones File:Doneye alminiyom.jpg, Aluminum-bodied instrument (قوشمه از جنس آلمینیوم "Ghoshmeh made of aluminum") File:Ostokhan oghab bal.jpg, Image showing location of eagle bones used to make the Ghoshmeh and the bones in the polishing stage. file:Qanbar-Rastgoo.jpg, Musician Ghanbar Rastgoo playing Hormozgan's version of the "Saz" (instrument, ساز) + "gifti" (paired, جفتی). (Saz gifti, paired instrument, ساز جفتی). File:Pastimes of Central Asians. Musicians. A Man Playing a Surnay, a Small Flute-like Instrument WDL10822.png, Musician from

Russian Turkestan Russian Turkestan () was a colony of the Russian Empire, located in the western portion of the Central Asian region of Turkestan. Administered as a Krai or Governor-Generalship, it comprised the oasis region to the south of the Kazakh Steppe, b ...

, about 1872, playing the ''koshnai'' (variation of the word ''ghoshmeh'').

History

Dozaleh or (Donay in Kurdish) is a very old instrument that is one of the first Iranian wind instruments. In Kurdish areas, this instrument is made from a plant called Zaleh, which grows near rivers. In modern times, the instrument's body has also been made from aluminum or copper tubes. This photo shows three different models of dozaleh, the model on the right is made by bone of some animals. The middle dozeleh is for Khorasan region and the photo on the left is for Kurdish regions. The instrument has been seen as sufficiently important to Iranian culture and history to encourage interest in it, through placement on the

Iran National Heritage List Iran National Heritage List is a register of nationally significant monuments, places, buildings, events, etc., officially registered under the National Heritage Preservation Act of 1930. According to Article 1 of this law, "All the industrial mon ...

. It is placed in works of North Khorasan in the "field of intangible cultural heritage", item 1543: Techniques and skills of making Ghoshmeh local instrument.

Playing

This instrument has 5 to 7 holes in each reed. It is played by three middle fingers of both hands, which are placed on the holes of the instrument. The thumbs take the instrument from behind. The musician puts the instrument's reed "tongue" inside his mouth and blows into it.

References

Hamshahrionline (Persian: همشهری آنلاین), online version of the Hamshahri Iranian daily paper. Article from 20 February 2017: Familiarity with Dozle instrument (آشنایی با ساز دوزله)
*Global Minstrels: Voices of World Music. Elijah Wald. 2012. p. 227. .

External links