Mijwiz

The mijwiz is anidioglot single-reed aerophone. It is a folk instrument widely distributed throughout the Middle East from Turkey to Morocco, often played solo by shepherds and amateurs but occasionally in combination with a singer and a drummer. Numerous names (many with multiple spellings) for this and related instruments are found in the literature, and determining which amongst them are the most generic and widely used is a challenge.

The mijwiz pictured here consists of two pipes, each made of three interlocking segments of reed. The longest segment is an open tube, has a cylindrical bore, and six equally-distanced fingerholes in a row (no thumbhole on the opposite side). These two pipes are securely bound together with tarred cotton cord at three points along their length so that their lines of fingerholes run parallel to one another. A short (about 2 inches in length) second section, likewise of two parallel tubes of cane (but with no fingerholes), is inserted into the top end of the fingerhole section. Separate 2-inch lengths of reed are then inserted into the top ends of the second section. These reed tubes, closed at their top end, have a deep back cut in them along much of their length to articulate a single flexible lamellae or idioglot reed (idioglot because the reed is not a separate entity attached to the tube, but part of the tube itself).