New Paper Published on the Variability of the Mansour Nay
Our new research article has been published in Acta Acustica:
The study, titled “Quantifying the variability in Mansour nay: a stochastic approach combining vibroacoustic modelling and PCE-Kriging” — a collaboration between Akın Oktav and Murat Alper Başaran of Alanya Alaaddin Keykubat University and Ali Tan of Istanbul Medeniyet University — examines the specimen-to-specimen geometric variability of the Mansour nay, a woodwind instrument made from a single piece of giant reed (Arundo donax L.), and its effect on the pitch frequencies produced by the instrument, using audio-based pitch measurements, vibroacoustic finite element modelling, and uncertainty quantification.
Twenty-six Mansour nay specimens, manufactured from reeds of different ages and geographic origins (Hatay, Antalya, Adana, and Aydın), were investigated. An Average Mansour Nay Model (AMNM) was constructed from the measured geometric properties of all samples, and PCE-Kriging — a surrogate modelling technique suited to small datasets — was used to rank the contribution of each geometric variable to the observed variability. The analysis identifies the top and bottom diameters as the dominant sources of pitch-frequency variation, with comparable influence, followed by the distances between finger holes and the total length. When the same framework is applied to the structural eigenfrequencies measured under free boundary conditions, the bottom diameter and mass emerge as the statistically significant variables. The surrogate model achieves leave-one-out cross-validation errors of 0.32 Hz for the acoustic model and 0.08 Hz for the structural model.
The findings provide quantitative guidance for giant reed selection and finger hole placement in nay making, and the overall methodology is transferable to other instruments made from natural materials, where specimen variability is inherent.
The full article is available at https://doi.org/10.1051/aacus/2026050.
