Dozaleh
# Dozaleh

The Dozaleh (Persian: دوزَله) is an Iranian-Kurdish folk instrument. The dozaleh is made of two pipes. One of them produces melody and the other harmony. It sounds like a Ney-anbān and it is very dynamic.

The instrument is played in the Middle East among the Kurdish 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 Kurdistan, from zal (زَل), the Kurdish 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

* Ghoshmeh. (قشمه استخوانی "Bone ghoshmeh"). Instrument made from bird bones
* Aluminum-bodied instrument (قوشمه از جنس آلمینیوم "Ghoshmeh made of aluminum")
* Image showing location of eagle bones used to make the Ghoshmeh and the bones in the polishing stage.
* Musician Ghanbar Rastgoo playing Hormozgan's version of the "Saz" (instrument, ساز) + "gifti" (paired, جفتی). (Saz gifti, paired instrument, ساز جفتی).
* Musician from Russian Turkestan, 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.

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. 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.

