The nai (archaic: muscal) is a traditional Romanian

diatonic Diatonic and chromatic are terms in music theory that are used to characterize scales. The terms are also applied to musical instruments, intervals, chords, notes, musical styles, and kinds of harmony. They are very often used as a pair ...

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 in a lot of genres.

Structure

The nai usually has at least 20 pipes made of

bamboo Bamboos are a diverse group of mostly evergreen perennial plant, perennial flowering plants making up the subfamily (biology), subfamily Bambusoideae of the grass family Poaceae. Giant bamboos are the largest members of the grass family, in th ...

or reed. 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 Bee hive wax complex Beeswax (also known as 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 o ...

; 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

* Fănică Luca *Damian Luca * Gheorghe Zamfir *Simion Stanciu *Radu Simion * Damian Drăghici *Nicolae Pîrvu * Dana Dragomir * Constantin Moscovici

References

External links

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