Suggestions reqd; how to buy a kazoo

Subject: RE: Suggestions reqd; how to buy a kazoo
From: Ross Campbell
Date: 24 May 11 - 10:47 AM

You're welcome, Al. Apologies for the impending expense!

The metal one I have has a sort of reverse screw-top arrangement which allows the membrane to be replaced. I found somewhere on the net that sold packs of spare membranes. Also Hobgoblin (UK) have boxes of a dozen metal kazoos for £24 - for all you potential kazoo bands out there?

Ross

Subject: RE: Suggestions reqd; how to buy a kazoo
From: GUEST,Alan Whittle
Date: 24 May 11 - 02:33 AM

Woweeee! That's what i call an inspiring site, Thanks Ross! I wouldn't know where to start. Imagine buying one shaped like aeroplane - and it had rotten wimpy little sound though. Just love the ideas there though. Straight onto my favourites bar! I'm bound to buy something there before long!

Subject: RE: Suggestions reqd; how to buy a kazoo
From: Ross Campbell
Date: 23 May 11 - 06:47 PM

Go Krazy (Kazoobie Kazoos - USA)

The red one (first in the list) looks like the one I have, stamped "Kazoo Co Inc, Eden, NY". Can't remember where I got it (UK), but I'm sure it wouldn't have been £5! Weedy sound though (or is that just me? I've tried various alternative membrane materials without success. Any suggestions?

Ross

Subject: RE: Suggestions reqd; how to buy a kazoo
From: Geoff the Duck
Date: 23 May 11 - 02:46 PM

As for a bass kazoo - you only have to check Mudcat photos...

Bass Kazoo

And with Kazoo Ensemble

Quack!
GtD

Subject: RE: Suggestions reqd; how to buy a kazoo
From: GUEST,Sooz
Date: 22 May 11 - 02:18 PM

I have a nice shiny marching band kazoo which cost about £30. It is brilliant - but not as good as one which appeared in a workshop I ran over Easter. It was a genuine army bugle which had had a metal kazoo in place of the mouthpiece. It is an amazing instrument!

Subject: RE: Suggestions reqd; how to buy a kazoo
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 21 May 11 - 06:05 PM

Congratulations on a happy outcome.

I'm so glad the kazoo didn't fizzle.

Subject: RE: Suggestions reqd; how to buy a kazoo
From: GUEST,Alan Whittle
Date: 21 May 11 - 10:25 AM

I just want to reassure anyone in the same quandary that I was, the kazoo is brilliant. Its doing its first gig tonight.

The fiver paid did seem expensive. However i used to go to a music shop where he had hundreds of the plastic ones in jars - and I never did get a good one from him.

I think all folkies will know what i mean when i say this one has moderate THRUTCHH! Not a real corker but very useable. Also you get a certificate from the scientist in the picture, and an attractive cardboard tube to carry your kazoo in.

Subject: RE: Suggestions reqd; how to buy a kazoo
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 11 May 11 - 04:07 PM

Thanks for the info, Alan. I found Ziggy Stardust on YouTube. I found it amusing.

Years ago my sister said to me that David Bowie and his brothers had a prettiness inherited from their mother, actress Shirley ----?

No amount of rock veneer or shock treatment manages to hide that prettiness.

Subject: RE: Suggestions reqd; how to buy a kazoo
From: GUEST,Alan Whittle
Date: 11 May 11 - 02:29 PM

Nice hear Rod feltpn's still around. i remember him and Rob doing my folk club at Orton on the Hill in the 1970's - they were The Modern idiot grunt Band - of course.

I tend to think they wouldn't dare charge five quid for something that didn't make a god rich farty noise. You never know though!

Ziggy stardust was the hard rocking persona of David Bowie circa 1974. He use to wwear a very mini skirt and very flirtatiously flick it up during performances. If you've never been a sex object yourself- its heady stuff, i have found!

http://www.5years.com/Retire.htm

Scroll down to see the outfit!

Subject: RE: Suggestions reqd; how to buy a kazoo
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 11 May 11 - 12:15 PM

Before this discussion winds down, I would like to make sure that all know what Ziggy (not Ziggy Starfield) is like.

he's the fellow on the left

Subject: RE: Suggestions reqd; how to buy a kazoo
From: GUEST,crazy little woman
Date: 11 May 11 - 10:22 AM

Five quid is serious money, but it's still a lot less than the Martin Dreadnought Model D284736163850674737ZT. I think Alan's done well.

Subject: RE: Suggestions reqd; how to buy a kazoo
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 10 May 11 - 11:33 PM

Congratulations on your purchase, Alan. I'm sure you will get a lot of pleasure from your old-fashioned kazoo.

It's got to be the genuine article. Look at the suit that guy's wearing.

Subject: RE: Suggestions reqd; how to buy a kazoo
From: Gurney
Date: 10 May 11 - 06:17 PM

You bloody are paying for it, too, Alan. Five quid for a kazoo!


That is the metal one I spoke of, by the way.

Subject: RE: Suggestions reqd; how to buy a kazoo
From: GUEST,Alan Whittle
Date: 10 May 11 - 04:04 PM

Well with no great expectations, I've ordered one of these

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Original-Tin-Kazoo-Made-just-original-Gold-Top-/350461823199?pt=UK_Woodwind_Instruments&hash=item51992708d

we'll just have to see. I've had lots of kazoos (some men have women, some of us have to make do with kazoos). i know how they work. I know what they do. I know how to play them. But also, I know that I've owned some really rubbish kazoos. One or two good ones - which I should have held close to my bosom - but somehow fate was cruel and somehow we were both too young, and somehow - we just drifted apart. those are the breaks. Those were the days my friend. but now I've grown old, and I find myself old and kazoo-less.

When you're young. You don't think you're going to end up on our own. so there's nothing left - except to pay for it.

Subject: RE: Suggestions reqd; how to buy a kazoo
From: Gurney
Date: 10 May 11 - 03:45 PM

Try to find a Hummazoo.(Several different spellings.) They don't sound any different to ordinary kazoos when played openly, but they are circular, which makes it easier to vamp them like a mouth-organ.
Attaching trumpet-like extensions above the vibrating diaphragm also changes the sound. There's a metal one with a trumpet bit.

I once attended a workshop which offered prizes for the most effective kazoos. Strange things appeal to strange minds.

If you are around the English midlands, try to talk to Rod Felton of Coventry.

Subject: RE: Suggestions reqd; how to buy a kazoo
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 10 May 11 - 03:16 PM

Hi, Bill.

That hint about having hot food in the mouth came from someone here at the Mudcat (someone named either Mick or Rick) and it was one of the best pieces of advice I've ever had.

Now I'm going to find out who (or what) Ziggy Stardust is.

Subject: RE: Suggestions reqd; how to buy a kazoo
From: Bill D
Date: 10 May 11 - 11:03 AM

The working part of any kazoo is just a small piece of paper/film stretched over a hole. You can alter the shape of the area which projects the sound...(as in the 'trumpet' linked to above), but most of the sound, as leenia suggests, IS produced by YOU. I have an old one with a bell at the end and an added Sousaphone type bell over the sound hole that I can actually rotate to function as a monitor...or even cup my hand over like a mute. But *I* still have to produce the basic sound by humming.

I have a fancy wooden one with two sides, but it it mostly for looks, and still has only the basic paper to vibrate.

Subject: RE: Suggestions reqd; how to buy a kazoo
From: GUEST,alan Whittle
Date: 10 May 11 - 10:54 AM

Don't be so literal dear......!

I never had the figure to be Ziggy stardust - i would have loved the mini skirt though!

Subject: RE: Suggestions reqd; how to buy a kazoo
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 10 May 11 - 10:51 AM

But I wasn't making fun. Just let Ziggy do it.

That 'thee' or 'thou' question, now. Surely any schoolchild knows that 'thou' is the nominative case of the second person familiar singular and 'thee' is the objective case, would analyze the sentence grammatically and select the correct form.

The hard part is keeping the schoolchild awake till the 92nd verse.

Subject: RE: Suggestions reqd; how to buy a kazoo
From: GUEST,Alan Whittle
Date: 10 May 11 - 10:28 AM

You guys got no respect for the turmoil that my creativity forced me into.

do I make fun, when you're agonising over whether its thee or thou in the 92nd verse of Tam Linn?

Subject: RE: Suggestions reqd; how to buy a kazoo
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 10 May 11 - 09:26 AM

It's a lot cheaper to let your body produce the big throaty sound and then send that to an ordinary kazoo. Yes, there's the Martin Dreadnought Model D284736163850674737ZT kazoo you can buy, but they cost a lot of money, and it's hell to get capos for them.

Meanwhile, in the vicinity of your belly-button, inside your body, dwells a Ziggy-like creature that exists only to send your voice out.

1. Imagine you have taken in a mouthful of very hot food and are too polite to spit it out. What do you do? You will instinctively open the back of your mouth (raise the soft palate) to let air in. Suddenly your voice will be big.

2. Relax your throat and jaw, so they don't get in Ziggy's way.

3. Don't slouch.

4. Smile with your eyes

5. Join a regular choral group

6. Just let Ziggy do it.

Throaty? There are two ways to do throaty. One is to be unhealthy -- to smoke, to have chronic allergies, to have a low-grade sinus infection. The other way is to let a sound engineer push the THR button. I believe that's how the professionals do it.

Subject: RE: Suggestions reqd; how to buy a kazoo
From: GUEST,Alan Whittle
Date: 10 May 11 - 09:00 AM

Yes there are some impressive ones on e-bay. has anybody any 'mouth on' experience of a good one out of that lot.

i want a big vibrant sexy farty sound - for preference.

Subject: RE: Suggestions reqd; how to buy a kazoo
From: muppett
Date: 10 May 11 - 08:17 AM

I got mine from the early learning centre and a good un too.

Subject: RE: Suggestions reqd; how to buy a kazoo
From: GUEST,Desi C
Date: 10 May 11 - 07:35 AM

How to buy a Kazoo? With a bag over your head I suggest!

Subject: RE: Suggestions reqd; how to buy a kazoo
From: BanjoRay
Date: 10 May 11 - 07:18 AM

When I was a small boy in South Wales there used to be many "Jazz Bands" that competed for prizes at our village carnivals. These were actually marching bands of maybe 20 people in flamboyant uniforms, with military drums and kazoos. The Kazoos they played had a trumpet style horn on the end, and produced a lot of volume. Never seen them since, but they must have been mass produced at one time.
They were a superb spectacle - very enjoyable.
Ray

Subject: RE: Suggestions reqd; how to buy a kazoo
From: Bounty Hound
Date: 10 May 11 - 07:04 AM

How about this one!

http://www.kazoos.com/trumpet.htm

Subject: RE: Suggestions reqd; how to buy a kazoo
From: GUEST,John MacKenzie
Date: 10 May 11 - 06:38 AM

Look here Al

Subject: Suggestions reqd; how to buy a kazoo
From: GUEST,Alan Whittle
Date: 10 May 11 - 06:09 AM

I need a really good kazoo. One with a big throaty sound. However over the years i have bought many lousy kazoos with weedy sounds to them. The salesman invariably says once you've tried it, you've got to buy it.

Is there a super kazoo manufactured with good throaty results guaranteed?