This flute is the natural uncarved chinese flute. It has five holes, it's 15 1/2" long, and is made of river cane, or Giant reed. It is cut into its original size, held over open fire to blacken the top and then holepoked with a red hot iron rod. It plays beautiful melodies of chinese origin. I modfied ti to be played like a persian ney (so you can look professional =) ). OR you can learn the hard way to play it like a regular ney from egypt.