Excerpt From Book
If you can hum, sing, or talk, you can successfully kazoo. At this very moment, millions of satisfied kazooists all over the globe are delighting in the kazoo’s distinctive sounds. Yet, sadly, the kazoo continues to be an object of derision and scorn among those ignorant of its extraordinary qualities. The time has come to set the record straight and allow the kazoo to take its rightful place in the world of music.
For the uninitiated, the kazoo is a small cigar-shape plastic or metal instrument that produces a pleasant buzzing when the player hums, sings, or speaks into it. The instrument itself has no musical capabilities, so everything depends on the kazooist. In fact, it has been said that the instrument may actually be a hindrance to the kazooist, that “the kazoo is to music what the full-body cast is to ballet.” But this is a very shortsighted view. The kazoo’s total dependency on the kazooist is precisely what makes kazooing a uniquely individual musical expression.
Most important, the kazoo is a musical instrument, not simply a toy. Thus, for all kazooists, the fundamental rule of musicianship applies: “Practice, practice, practice . . . but not near the neighbors.”
The Kazoo and Its Place in the Musicological Hierarchy
Musicologists are great experts on many things, but the kazoo is not one of them. Preoccupied with other matters, musicologists have tended to classify anything that buzzes as a kazoo. The kazoo, eunuch flute, mirliton, Hum-azoo, zobo, and other, similar instruments have all been wantonly and erroneously thrown together and their names used interchangeably. Some have even gone so far afield as to confuse the kazoo with the ocarina (sweet potato) and such items as the Jew’s harp, the harmonica, or the whoopee cushion. (Fortunately, most of these experts remain cloistered in academia and do not frequent the out-of-doors. Otherwise, the confusion might extend to include chain saws, model airplanes, and even killer bees.) Kazoos are like toothbrushes: Anyone can use one, everyone needs one, but you rarely see anyone writing about toothbrushes except dentists.
The kazoo is actually a member of the musical classification “membranophone.” This category consists of percussion instruments that produce sound through the use of a stretched membrane. Further, it is part of the subcategory “mirliton,” a group of instruments that disguises or modifies sounds produced vocally (or by another instrument) through the medium of vibrating membranes. The membrane causes the sound to be amplified and distorted, giving a nasal buzzing quality.
There are a thousand varieties of mirlitons throughout the world. They share the same principle of sound production but exist in varying sizes, shapes, and permutations in different countries. This vastly popular group of instruments may be further subcategorized as either free mirlitons (such as the comb and tissue paper or the turkey call) or tube or vessel mirlitons (such as the zobo, kazoo, and eunuch flute).
Just as more conventional instruments have specific names, so do the types of tube mirlitons. “Violin,” for example, is a specific name for a particular shape and type of chordophone, subcategory lute. No sensible person would refer to a violin as a “lute,” although it does belong to this group of instruments. Nor would we use “violin” as a synonym for the hurdy-gurdy or bass viol, even though they are related in principles of sound production. In like fashion, we correctly use “kazoo” to refer to a specific instrument, the American version of a tube mirliton.
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