Hey, You Crazy Kazoos!
I’m sure everybody reading this is well-versed with the art of the Kazoo. After all, it isn’t the hardest instrument to master. If you can hum Mary Had a Little Lamb, you can surely play it on the Kazoo too! If, on the off chance that you never before learned to play the Kazoo, what better day is there to learn than today—National Kazoo Day!
It’s real easy. Just put the wide end of the Kazoo to your lips and hum—don’t blow—into it. 
The vibrations you cause from humming travel through the Kazoo and through the resonator, the circular piece that juts out the top of the Kazoo. This is what amplifies your hum and makes that buzz.
And now that you know how to play it, there’s still a lot you can learn about this peculiar instrument. For instance, how old is the Kazoo and where did it come from?
The history of the Kazoo goes all the way back to the 1840’s in Macon, Georgia. Invented by an American man named Alabama Vest, he had his idea made up by a German clock maker, Thaddeus Von Clegg. In 1912, when the strange instrument was discovered by a traveling salesman named Emil Sorg, he brought the idea of manufacturing these instruments to New York.
Emil Sorg created a partnership with a die maker named Michael McIntyre as well as the owner of a metal forming plant named Harry Richardson.
And so, in 1914 on Main Street in Eden, New York, Harry Richardson’s metal forming plant became the Original American Kazoo Company. It still stands today as North America’s exclusive metal kazoo factory. And they’re still manufacturing kazoos today in the exact same way that they were manufactured back then! This factory is one of the last working museums in the world!
Like the Pet Rock, the Slinky, and Beanie Babies, the Kazoo caught on immediately and has become a classic piece of American history.
Click here to listen to our version of Camp Granada played on kazoos, you’ll have a good laugh!
Happy Kazoo Day, Kids!
- John
P.S. Don’t drive your parents too crazy!