A duduk is made from apricot wood - and only apricot wood. Apricot trees grow all over Armenia, and their wood has just the right balance of softness and strength for the special sound. Other woods have been tried, but musicians say none of them sing in quite the same way.
The instrument is about 35 centimetres long with seven small finger holes on the front and one thumb hole on the back. At the top is a wide flat reed made of two pieces of cane tied together. The musician closes their lips around the reed and breathes carefully, controlling the air with tiny movements.
Duduk music is often slow and full of feeling. A famous Armenian musician called Djivan Gasparyan made the duduk known all over the world - his playing appears in many Hollywood film soundtracks, including 'Gladiator' and 'The Last Temptation of Christ'. Whenever you hear a film with a sad, beautiful, breathy wind sound, it is often a duduk.
In Armenia, the duduk is so important that UNESCO (the part of the United Nations that protects world treasures) put it on its list of 'masterpieces of human heritage' in 2005. Schools across Armenia teach children to play the duduk, and there are duduk competitions and festivals every year.