The musicians of mawwal play rababa, a double-stringed spike fiddle made from half of a coconut shell covered with fish skin and a bow strung with horse hair; the kawala, anend-blown, oblique flute with six holes; and the arghoul, an ancient double clarinet characterized by two pipes of unequal length.

The 13 chapters (plus bibliography and indices for instruments, makers, people and places, and general information) cover the following topics: Seaweed, Bark, Cane, and Gourd; Side-blown Horns; Shell Trumpets; ShorterEnd-blown Trumpets and Horns; LongerEnd-blown Trumpets; "Orchestral" Trumpets and Slide Trombones; "Orchestral" Natural Horns; Valved Horns, Trumpets, and Trombones; Bugles and Cornets [including flugelhorns, alto, tenor and baritone horns, euphoniums, tubas, saxhorns, etc.]; Fingerhole Horns [cornettos to ophicleides]; Accessories [mouthpieces, mutes, lyres, shanks, lubricants, cleaners, tools]; The Technology of Brass Instruments [the process of making instruments, including materials and shaping processes]; Playing [producing sounds, factors in tone, acoustics].

Connecting instrument-building, ethnomusicology, and Japanese studies, this book looks at the history and techniques of the shakuhachi, here considered broadly as anend-blown Japanese flute.

Although not specifically mentioned, these instruments includeend-blown or rim-blown flute, notched flute, and side-blown flute.

The strings are overlaid with the soft, piping tones of Rajoub's saxophones, reigned in to a woody whisper reminiscent of a Turkish ney (anend-blown wooden flute), and bolder, brassier pieces in which the two instruments tangle and collaborate, call and respond, over Yassine's wild percussion.

In fact, the piece "Llef" - which we were told translates as "A Cry from Heaven" - was originally written for cello and shakuhachi, a Japaneseend-blown bamboo flute, the latter instrument having been studied by Tann for six years.

Chapter Four is an overview of Kaulong solo instrumental music which is played exclusively on aerophones, otherwise known as wind instruments: lawi (raft panpipes), laresup and lasevarut (bundle panpipes), and lapilue (end-blown flute)--instruments that are often played in a programmatic way (that is, to tell a story, or depict an event or a character) and that can act as speech surrogates to express what otherwise remains unspoken.

With the flip of a switch from Beshai, amped up rock, drum and bass entered the fray, anchored by the more organic sounds of the darabuka (goblet drum) and nay (end-blown flute).

There are hints of klezmer-tango on Herskowitz's arrangement of "Gottingen," a '60s-era hit for the French chanteuse Barbara; and polonaise rhythms vie with Arab ones for the soul of "Polonaise Libanaise," a rearrangement of Chopin's "Polonaise in F# Minor." Bassam Saba pops up again too, playing both the oud and the nay, anend-blown flute with a pleasantly nasal timbre.

Araki also plays pennywhistles, low whistles and shakuhachi, anend-blown wooden flute.

John Egan battles to be heard above the seething (but always highly controlled) chaos, switching from conventional flute to what looks like anend-blown Turkish ney.

And the Japanese shakuhachi (also constructed of bamboo) is anend-blown flute that is linked to the spiritual practice of Zen.