The kaval is a chromatic end-blown oblique flute traditionally played throughout the Balkans (in Albania, Romania, Bulgaria, Southern Serbia, Kosovo, North Macedonia, Northern Greece, and elsewhere)[1] and Anatolia (including Turkey and Armenia).

As a wooden rim-blown flute, kaval is similar to the kawala of the Arab world and ney of the Middle East.

While typically made of wood (cornel cherry, apricot, plum, boxwood, mountain ash, etc.

), kavals are also made from water buffalo horn, Arundo donax Linnaeus 1753 (Persian reed), metal and plastic.

A kaval made without joints is usually mounted on a wooden holder, which protects it from warping and helps keep the interior walls oiled.

While in the past it was almost entirely a shepherd's instrument, today it is widely used in folk songs and dances as part of ensembles or solo.

What controls which register the performer works in is mostly the air flow and to some extent the position of the mouth and the lips on the end of the kaval.

[1] The Bulgarian kaval, once made of a single piece of wood, is now constructed of three separate sections (of cornel, walnut, plum or boxwood), with a total length of 60 to 90 cm.

[1] In the south-west Rhodope mountains, two kavals in the same tuning (called chifte kavali) are played together, one performing the melody, the other a drone.

The low pitched sounds between E and A cannot be obtained on the Romanian caval in A, which confers the instrument the special individualization of an “elliptic ambitus”.

In the middle of the higher octave, the E2 sound can be obtained by two different pressure techniques, resulting in specific timbral effects.

The Turkish kaval can be made of wood, cane, bone or metal (usually brass) and has five or more finger-holes, one thumb-hole and sometimes additional unfingered holes like the Bulgarian instrument.

The tone is obtained just when the kaval is being stuck to the lips semi-horizontally, or under the angle of 45 degrees, as the player blows straight.

It has been said that shepherds sent messages with a kavall when threatened by thieves or in order to send romantic signals to their beloved.

The svirka (or tsafara, svorche, or little kaval) is a Bulgarian shepherd's flute, consisting of one wooden tube 25 to 50 cm long with six or seven holes for fingers, and a bone lip where it is endblown.

[citation needed] The blul [hy] (Armenian: բլուլ) is an open end-blown shepherd's flute traditionally played in Armenia and similar in structure to the kaval.

[8] An open end-blown flute similar to the kaval is used by the Bashkirs and the Caucasians; it is called by such terms as khobyrakh, Quray and choor or shoor.