The document discusses two traditional Turkish musical instruments: The tambur is a fretted string instrument that is played with a plectrum or bow. It has a semi-spherical wooden body made of strips of wood joined together. The ney is an end-blown flute that is prominent in Middle Eastern music. It is made of hollow cane or reed with finger and thumb holes. The ney is considered one of the oldest instruments still in use today.

1. TURKISH MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS
Tanburs
The Tambur is a fretted string instrument of Turkey and the former lands of the Ottoman Empire.
Like the ney, the armudi (lit. pear-shaped) kemençe and the kudüm, it constitutes one of the four
instruments of the basic quartet of Turkish classical music. Of the two variants, one is played with a
plectrum (mizrapli tambur) and the other with a bow (yayli tambur). The player is called a tanburî.
Tamburs are made almost entirely of wood. The shell (Tekne) is assembled from strips of hardwood
called ribs joined edge to edge to form a semi-spherical body for the instrument. The number of
ribs traditionally amounts to 17, 21 or 23, yet examples with slightly wider and consequently fewer
ribs (7, 9 or 11) can also be found among older specimens. Traditionally, thinner strips called fileto
are inserted between the ribs for ornamental purposes, but are not obligatory.
Ney
The ney is an end-blown flute that figures prominently in Middle Eastern music. In some of these
musical traditions, it is the only wind instrument used. It is a very ancient instrument, with depictions
of ney players appearing in wall paintings in the Egyptian pyramids and actual neys being found in
the excavations at Ur. This indicates that the ney has been played continuously for 4,500–5,000
years, making it one of the oldest musical instruments still in use. It is a forerunner of the modern
flute.
The ney consists of a piece of hollow cane or reed with five or six finger holes and one thumb
hole. Ney is an old semitic arabic word means crying from the word (naei) because its sound
resembles a person crying. Modern neys may be made of metal or plastic tubing instead. The pitch
of the ney varies depending on the region and the finger arrangement. A highly skilled ney player
can reach more than three octaves, though it is more common to have several "helper" neys to
cover different pitch ranges or to facilitate playing technical passages in other maqamat.