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The zurna (sorna, mizmar) is a double-reed wood-wind instrument with a conical bored tube that's mostly finished with a large bell. It has 8 medium sized fingerholes whereby the eight hole is fingered with the left thumb. The upper end of the tube is closed with a clothespin-like piece called the capisto. The thumbhole is not the first hole nearest by the player in difference to the European wood-wind instruments. The thumbhole is nearly in the middle between the fingerholes for the left forefinger and the left middle finger. This fingerhole configuration is typical for oriental wood-wind instruments. Crossfingerings can be used. The instrument has a large range to slide the tones. That enables to tune the tones to every scale (incl. microtones). Also a limited possibility to play glissandi exists. The zurna have its orign in antique predecessors and it's the oldest known member of the shawm family. Many kinds of the instrument exist in accordance to this. The sound passes from sonorous to strong nasal. The sound is always clearly sharp, often rough and sometimes a little bit scratchy. All kinds of the instrument sound very loud. It's played sometimes with the oboe technique but mostly it's played with free blowing and circular breathing whereby the lips are relieved by a lip-ring. The scale has a range of about 1½-2 octaves whereby it's overblown once. Three sizes really exist. The medium sized zurna (Orta Zurna) is mostly known. Thats scale range starts about the middle of the once-accented octave. The short sized zurna (Cura Zurna) has a scale range that starts about a fifth above the deepest tone of the medium sized zurna. The long sized zurna (Kaba Zurna) has a scale range that starts about a fifth below the deepest tone of the medium sized zurna. Traditionally the zurna is only played together with the double-skin drum davul (dohol). Short and medium sized zurnas are normally played solo or in pairs. If they are played in pairs, one zurna plays the melody and the other accompanies it with drones. The long sized zurnas are played at more than two too. If two ore more long sized zurnas are played together, traditinally only one melody part is played and other zurna players accompany the melody with drones, partially in parallel fourths and fifths. All European members of the shawm family are descendants of the zurna.