Kazoos produce a harsh sound with its signature buzzing quality that even modern audio electronics cannot quite smooth over.
The present invention provides self-contained kazoo musical instruments capable of transforming a person’s humming into pleasing instrumental sound by applying various electronic signal processing. Each kazoo includes an internal speaker with MP3 capability for background accompaniment music.
Sound
The kazoo is an African instrument dating back over 100 years, yet despite countless innovations to improve its design and shape, sound quality remains poor, rendering playing it challenging for many players. A group of inventors set out to remedy this by creating a device which uses someone humming to control electronic musical instruments that reproduce the tone characteristics of his/her voice to generate synthetic musical sounds with these tonal characteristics.
This concept is illustrated in FIGS. 17 and 18. FIG. 17 depicts a perspective side view of an electric kazoo musical instrument designed to convert the humming of its user into pleasing instrumental sound, according to the present invention; FIG. 18 depicts a front perspective view of this same instrument.
A kazoo is a hollow body with an inlet for human humming and an output blocked by a detachable vibrating diaphragm, made of material capable of producing large vibrations when excited by musical tones hummed through it. Furthermore, this diaphragm contains holes across its surface to be excited by specific frequencies within hummed tones.
When played, a kazoo vibrates at each hole to reproduce the particular frequency of its original hummed sound, reproducing all weak non-audible overtones that were originally audible but not audible at once. However, due to boosting these overtones further and making them audible at last. Unfortunately though, its output can sometimes sound harsh due to increased buzzing tones within it.
The present kazoo concept relies on the principle that its composite vibrating diaphragm has a fundamental resonance frequency in the upper mid audio range (i.e. higher quartile or upper mid audio range), vibrates at regular vibrating modes and vibrates without buzzing content, thus eliminating buzzing content issues as illustrated in FIG. 9. By doing so, specific frequencies responsible for buzzing can be effectively identified and filtered out for producing pleasant kazoo sounds.
Appearance
Kazoos are cigar-shaped metal or plastic tubes covered with a thin membrane of paper, oiled paper, tissue or silicone plastic covering one end, which features an oval hole. Musicians usually hum into the narrow end and use their hand over the wider end to produce warbling or other effects; Jimi Hendrix famously played one on “Crosstown Traffic,” while country music singers frequently incorporate this instrument.
Although inventors have made many efforts to reduce its harsh tone, kazoos still offer an uneasy musical experience for most users. But with an innovative new kazoo concept this may change!
The new kazoo concept rests on the idea that an electronic kazoo can transform someone’s humming sounds into musical instrument with an intricate instrumental sound, free of buzzing content and easily perceived as a saxophone or other wind instrument based on audio effects applied. Alongside its sound transducer and electronic circuit for turning its output to audio signals and applying desired effects.
To build an electronic kazoo, first remove any debris or paper from the end of a tube and clean thoroughly using a wet towel to avoid dirt entering your instrument. Drill a hole into either end where you will install your microphone jack; also drill one into its body where a piezo element will be secured.
Once the holes have been drilled, solder the wires from the piezo element to the microphone jack’s ground and tip tabs. Finally, apply some hot glue into the body of your kazoo to keep its jack secure.
The kazoo has long been considered an American instrument and now is an opportunity to bring it back into prominence. Not only can it serve as a toy, but it can also serve as an educational tool that helps students learn music theory – not to mention being fun way for children to express their creativity! Historically popular among folk and bluegrass music, as well as popular rock groups like Grateful Dead and Paolo Conte who incorporate its use.
Functions
Kazoos are musical instruments designed to convert human humming into an instrumental sound, used in jug bands, comedy music and amateur musical groups alike. One of the easiest melodic instruments to learn how to play, they have become increasingly popular as toys and advertising specialty items over time due to their characteristic buzzing tone.
The present invention provides an efficient means of dealing with the unpleasant sound produced by kazoos by providing a device which transforms an individual’s hum into an appealing musical tone by improving its harmonic structure and decreasing buzzing content. The device comprises of a hollow body with an inlet opening designed for human humming and an outlet opening for sound; and a composite vibrating diaphragm consisting of thin plastic film (1.25 mil thick polyethylene widely used for small domestic food freezer bags) peripherally fixed onto a perforated disk; when activated it forms individual membranes at each hole that vibrate independently during humming processes using regular vibrating modes.
An electronic band-stop filter based on a Helmholtz resonator is installed between the holder 315 and composite diaphragm, and an electronic band-stop filter consisting of side openings 319 between this filter and diaphragm to radiate sound waves into the environment. A holder 315 holds up the composite diaphragm while an electronic band-stop filter with port facing vibrating diaphragm (Kazoo’s vibrating diaphragm). Resonator cavity 316A faces the vibrating diaphragm of Kazoo while side openings 319 exist between these components that allow sound waves from spreading into its environment.
In this configuration, a Helmholtz resonator can enhance the harmonic structure of a kazoo’s sound by increasing or attenuating certain frequency bands which cause buzzing so they no longer dominate its tone. Furthermore, its ability to do this is independent from its fundamental resonance frequency, producing more pleasing tones than devices without such components.
An instrument composed of a thin circular membrane with a high fundamental resonance frequency would require a relatively large surface area for effective operation, making it impractical as a mouth-held kazoo. Furthermore, such a thin membrane often exhibits irregular vibrations as its resonance frequencies spread across different audio ranges with different amplitudes than their respective overtones reproduced by its diaphragm diaphragm diaphragm diaphragm diaphragm reproduce.
Design
Kazoos produce harsh sounds with an audible buzzing content, yet can still become musical instruments providing pleasing instrumental sounds only if their harsh sounds can be smoothened out and their buzzing content removed – something which has remained an unsolved problem for over 100 years.
This invention introduces a novel kazoo device concept featuring a composite vibrating diaphragm consisting of thin and flexible film stretched across a rigid perforated disk having multiple holes distributed on its surface and peripherally fixed thereto, thus blocking sound outlet openings; whereby this film forms individual vibration membranes at each of its holes of said disk that become excited by an individual humming note produced sound-waves from them; furthermore a holder is provided to hold this diaphragm in its location;
As shown in FIGS. 7 and 8, holder 315 contains a Helmholtz resonator 316 with port 316A facing towards the vibrating diaphragm of the kazoo device and cavity 316B facing away from it, that enhances performance by effectively filtering out frequencies causing buzzing while also decreasing noise level. The Helmholtz resonator helps minimize buzzing while simultaneously decreasing noise level by filtering them out and filtering noise out altogether.
As seen in FIGS. 12 and 13, the kazoo device according to the invention features a vibration diaphragm with each hole separated by an air gap, each gap being sealed off using seals for airtightness. Vibration of individual membranes at each hole produces sound-waves which travel out into the environment through these gaps and add depth and character to a kazoo device’s soundscape. Furthermore, each hole’s vibrational amplitude is directly proportional to its frequency of resonance for each vibration mode – this ensures an especially rich kazoo device sound while increasing listening fatigue resistance. As previously discussed, individual vibrating modes produce regular vibrations of kazoo diaphragm diaphragm vibrations and prevent resonant buzzing sound occurrence. Figure 5 and 6 represent vibration frequency for previous composite diaphragm diaphone devices’ vibrating diaphragms.