What is a Kazoo?

The kazoo is a music instrument that you play by humming into it, which makes a thin membrane vibrate in resonance with the frequencies you hum.

Is the Kazoo Easy to Play?

In short: yes! The kazoo is in my opinion the easiest music instrument you can play. At least if we only focus on “melodic instruments”.

If you can hum a melody, you can play the kazoo. It’s in fact so easy, that it could even be argued that you don’t even “play” an instrument, but rather it just transforms your humming into a distorted buzzy noise.

Is the Kazoo a Real Instrument?

Some say that it is, most people however consider it more of a fun toy. The main reason for this is that the sound it produces is very buzzy high pitched and kind of distorted. In short: it sounds funny and can make you laugh from simply hearing the noise.

For this reason some people have been using the kazoo for its “fun factor”, and made meme videos on YouTube, here’s an example:

Can you use a Kazoo seriously for music?

Yes you can, perhaps not on stage as much as it looks like a toy. But in a recording studio, if you add effects to it such as: tape saturation, microphone techniques, amps, reverb etc. you can indeed make it more expressive and useful in a production.

You should also try using your hands in a motion that is similar to how you play a harmonica, as you can basically add some real world automation and filtering to the sound.