A wind instrument, the mey consists of three parts; the main body, the reed and the grip. The latter is attached to the reed in three places, and is pushed up or down, and can by tuned to allow a change of about one tone.

The mey is made of beech, walnut, plum wood etc. and possesses a range of about an octave. It has a total of eight melodic frets, seven on the top and one on the bottom. There are three main categories; The cura, orta (middle) and ana (main) mey.

The mey is called the 'balaban' in Azerbaijan