The kazoo is a musical instrument that creates a buzzing sound when a person sings or speaks into it. It is a type of mirliton, which is a membranophone, a category of instruments that change the sound of the player's voice using a vibrating membrane made of goldbeater's skin or similar materials. A smaller version of the kazoo is called a humazoo.

Playing

A kazoo player hums into the wider, flat side of the instrument instead of blowing. The changing air pressure from the hum causes the kazoo's thin membrane to vibrate. The sound produced changes in pitch and loudness based on how the player hums. Players can create different sounds by singing specific syllables, such as "doo," "too," "who," or "v rrrr," into the kazoo.

History

Simple membrane instruments that use vocal sounds, like the onion flute, were used as early as the 16th century. Some people say that Alabama Vest, an African-American man from Macon, Georgia, invented the kazoo around 1840. However, there is no written proof to support this claim. The story about Alabama Vest came from the Kaminsky International Kazoo Quartet, a group known for making fun of kazoo players. This group and the name "Alabama Vest" itself may make the story less likely to be true.

In 1879, Simon Seller got a patent for a "Toy Trumpet" that worked the same way as a kazoo. His design used a hollow metal tube with a rectangular opening covered by paper. When someone hummed while blowing through the tube, the paper vibrated, creating sound. In 1883, Warren Herbert Frost, an American inventor, created the first documented kazoo. He named his instrument "kazoo" in his patent #270,543. Frost’s kazoo had a circular opening raised above the tube, but it did not have the curved shape of today’s kazoos. In 1897, Milan Agrawal patented a wooden instrument similar to a kazoo, but it was not widely used. The modern kazoo, made of metal, was patented by George D. Smith of Buffalo, New York, on May 27, 1902.

In 1916, the Original American Kazoo Company in Eden, New York, began making kazoos for the public in a small factory. They used machines called jack presses to shape metal sheets. These machines were used for many years. By 1994, the company produced 1.5 million kazoos each year and was the only maker of metal kazoos in North America. The factory, still mostly unchanged, is now called The Kazoo Factory and Museum. It continues to operate and offers public tours.

In 2010, The Kazoo Museum opened in Beaufort, South Carolina, with displays about the history of kazoos.

Professional usage

The kazoo is played by professional musicians in jug bands and comedy music groups, as well as by amateur players around the world. It is one of the acoustic instruments developed in the United States and is considered one of the easiest melodic instruments to play, requiring only the ability to sing in tune. In Northeast England and South Wales, kazoos are used in young people's jazz bands. During Carnival events, kazoos are played in the Carnival of Cádiz in Spain and in the corsos on the murgas in Uruguay.

In the 1921 recording of "Crazy Blues" by the Original Dixieland Jass Band, what a casual listener might think is a trombone solo is actually a kazoo solo played by drummer Tony Sbarbaro.

Red McKenzie played the kazoo in a 1929 film short by the Mound City Blue Blowers. This group had several popular kazoo recordings in the early 1920s, featuring Dick Slevin on a metal kazoo and Red McKenzie on a comb and tissue paper kazoo (McKenzie also played the metal kazoo). The vocaphone, a type of kazoo with a sound similar to a trombone, was sometimes used in Paul Whiteman's Orchestra. Trombonist-vocalist Jack Fulton played it on Whiteman's recording of "Vilia" (1931) and Frankie Trumbauer's Medley of Isham Jones Dance Hits (1932). The Mills Brothers, a vocal group, originally started in vaudeville as a kazoo quartet, singing four-part harmony on kazoo with one brother playing guitar.

The kazoo is rarely used in European classical music. It appears in David Bedford's "With 100 Kazoos," where audience members are given kazoos to play along with a professional ensemble. Leonard Bernstein included a kazoo ensemble segment in the First Introit (Rondo) of his Mass. The kazoo was used in the 1990 Koch International and 2007 Naxos Records recordings of Charles Ives's "Yale-Princeton Football Game," where the kazoo chorus represents the sounds of a football crowd cheering. The kazoo players move up and down the scale as the crowd's cheering rises and falls.

In Frank Loesser's 1961 Broadway musical "How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying," several kazoos create the sound of electric razors in the executive washroom during a dance reprise of the song "I Believe in You."

In 1961, Del Shannon's song "So Long Baby," released on Big Top Records, included a kazoo during the instrumental break. The kazoo also appeared on the UK release of his album "Hats Off To Del Shannon." Joanie Sommers' 1962 hit "Johnny Get Angry" featured a kazoo ensemble in its instrumental bridge, as did Dion's "Little Diane" from the same year and Ringo Starr's 1973 cover of "You're Sixteen."

Jesse Fuller's 1962 recording of "San Francisco Bay Blues" includes a kazoo solo, as does Eric Clapton's 1992 version on MTV's Unplugged. On the Grateful Dead album "Anthem of the Sun," three band members play kazoo together. Many performances by Paolo Conte include kazoo passages.

Short kazoo performances appear on many modern recordings, often for comedic effect. For example, Frank Zappa used the kazoo in his 1966 album "Freak Out!" to add humor to songs like "Hungry Freaks, Daddy." In the song "Crosstown Traffic" from the album "Electric Ladyland," Jimi Hendrix used a comb-and-paper instrument to accompany his guitar and create a blown-out speaker sound. The Beatles' song "Lovely Rita" from "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" uses combs-and-paper instruments. Kazoo playing imitated the sound of a military brass band in the Pink Floyd song "Corporal Clegg."

In the McGuinness Flint recording "When I'm Dead and Gone," Benny Gallagher and Graham Lyle play kazoos in harmony during the instrumental break. The New Seekers' live track "Ever Since You Told Me That You Loved Me (I'm A Nut)" includes a kazoo solo by singer Eve Graham. British singer-songwriter Ray Dorset, leader of the pop-blues band Mungo Jerry, played the kazoo on many of his band's recordings, as did former member Paul King.

One of the most well-known kazoo players in recent years was Barbara Stewart (1941–2011). Stewart, a classically trained singer, wrote a book about the kazoo, formed the "quartet" Kazoophony, performed at Carnegie Hall, and appeared on the television show "Late Night with Conan O'Brien."

The soundtrack of the 2000 film "Chicken Run," composed by John Powell and Harry Gregson-Williams, includes kazoos in several pieces.

The 2014 video game "Yoshi's New Island" features synthesized kazoo sounds in its soundtrack.

The Ukrainian polka band Los Colorados released a cover of Rammstein's song "Du Hast," which includes a kazoo.

In November 2010, Sandra Boynton created a full-length performance of Maurice Ravel's "Bolero" using 300 kazoos and an orchestra, titled "Boléro Completely Unraveled," performed by the Highly Irritating Orchestra. Boynton played solo kazoo on this recording and noted, "I am at the perfect level of musical incompetence for this."

Records

On March 14, 2011, the audience at BBC Radio 3's Red Nose Show at the Royal Albert Hall, along with a group of famous musicians playing kazoos, created a new Guinness World Record for Largest Kazoo Ensemble. A total of 3,910 people played two musical pieces: Wagner's Ride of the Valkyries and The Dam Busters March. This number beat the earlier record of 3,861 players, which was set in Sydney, Australia, in 2009. Later that same night, a second attempt by 5,190 kazoo players set an even larger record.

On August 9, 2010, the San Francisco Giants hosted a special event to honor Jerry Garcia. During this tribute night, an estimated 9,000 kazoo players performed the song Take Me Out to the Ball Game.