kazooka electric kazoo
Kazooka electric kazoo
Saturday, March 2, 2013
The lowly kazoo is often considered nothing more than a toy, and frustrated parents may not even give it that much credit. In the hands of a toddler or preschooler, a kazoo can be a tired parent's nightmare, and many a household has at least one kazoo hidden away in a drawer, forgotten as the child moves on to another, quieter distraction.
But the kazoo has its place in professional music too: substituting for a saxophone in a low-budget recording or performance, or modulating a hummed vocal in a purely analog, clip-distorted, single-sideband fashion. It can be equally effective for comedic effect (Frank Zappa, Ringo Starr); as a multilayered, low-rent horn section (Paul McCartney, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Pink Floyd); or as a vocal effect you'd swear was an electric guitar (Jimi Hendrix). The kazoo can also be a valuable tool in a Foley sound effect artist's tookit. With a little imagination, it can sound like an unintelligible PA speaker (John Lennon), or even a duck call (Spike Mulligan).
Warren Herbert Frost patented the kazoo in January 1883 (US Patent #270,543). It's composed of a tube (originally wood, but more commonly metal or plastic today) with a side port, where a membrane (usually waxed paper) is stretched across and secured in place. The membrane vibrates in sympathy with a hummed or sung tone at one end of the tube, usually rattling against a grate (which holds the membrane in place and prevents it from being punctured). A graph of the resulting sound wave will show a severe clip as the membrane strikes the grate, and a smoother curve where the membrane vibrates more freely. This clipped curve is what gives the kazoo its unique sound.
Jacob Houser invented the Kazooka in 2002 (the idea originated during a jam session in 1996; the name is a mashup of "kazoo" and "bazooka."). Houser replaced the grate on a standard kazoo with a custom-designed piezoeletric pickup housing. A 1/4" audio cable allows the user to plug the Kazooka into almost any audio input jack: a mixing console, a multitrack recorder, a computer, a guitar amplifier, or even guitar effects like distortion, flange or reverb. The result can be a more pure kazoo tone, eliminating the background noise you might get from a microphone, or a new way to create sounds you could only achieve with synthesizers before.
My Kazooka came as a gift from my friend Ernest "Sir Butch" Bach, and it certainly seems like a well-built (if not particularly beautiful) piece of equipment. The piezo housing is easily removed to replace the membrane, or for use as a stand-alone makeshift microphone. The cable has strain reliefs at both ends to prevent the connectors from shorting out with use. And the manufacturer even thought ahead enough to include replacement membranes (and a template for cutting your own) and detailed instructions and suggestions.
Retailing at $34.95 USD, it might seem a bit pricey compared to a traditional kazoo (which can be had for as little as a dollar if you look around), but the potential benefit to the creative process might certainly be worth the investment. I've not used my Kazooka much yet, but I have done a couple of demos with it, and am looking forward to seeing where it can take me.
Photo by Donna Jo Wallace