Most people would think nothing of seeing a person in marching band walking around with a kazoo t-shirt. Not Emma Kearney ’21 and Erica Buettner ‘21, this was their inspiration for creating the kazoo club.

The kazoo club meets Wednesdays at 8:15 a.m. The club plans to play covers of songs and have snacks. The founders of the club have song ideas in mind such as “The Final Countdown”. Erica Buettner and Emma Kearney are the founders of the club. They will mostly be playing for fun but one goal the club has is to perform at the intermission of a talent show or a show choir concert.

“You hum into [the kazoo] and that’s how you get the different sounds,” Buettner said.. The humming notes played in a kazoo are who, rrr, brrrr, and doo. Blowing into the kazoo does not make the instrument come alive, so humming is the best technique. To increase the volume of the kazoo, players must hum harder, faster and louder.

Kearney and Buettner both agree that the instrument is enjoyable and relaxing. “It takes absolutely no skill,” Kearney says about how the kazoo is different from any other instrument.

The kazoo club is located in AP Human Geography teacher Megan Johnson’s room on the second floor. Johnson is the teacher that agreed to the idea and made the club official. “Mrs. Johnson laughed at first, but then she said that she would support our endeavors on Wednesday mornings,” Buettner says about how the got the club accepted.

The founders of the club thought they would ask a teacher that they trusted and liked to help them get started with club. “[Mrs. Johnson] is really supportive and nice. We felt comfortable asking her,” Kearney said.

Johnson was baffled by the idea of having a kazoo club but later thought, “anything positive that brings students together around a common interest is a great thing, so I of course said I’d be the faculty adviser.”

The first meeting of the kazoo club was the planning meeting where six people arrived. The first official meeting was Wednesday, November 7th. They had around six people there. They started playing song covers on the kazoo and had snacks. “It’s pretty low-key and just for fun, not super serious. You don’t have to have your own kazoo, we will have extras,” Buettner says talking about the club.

After getting inspiration from a guy wearing a kazoo t-shirt,, they decided to search up kazoo’s on Amazon. They found more inspiration from Amazon reviews for kazoo’s.

People all over the world are playing kazoo’s, they even have their own national kazoo day. National kazoo day is Jan. 28. The West High kazoo club has no special plans for national kazoo day…yet.

The kazoo was invented in the 1840s and first shown at the Georgia State Fair in 1852. Kazoo is a very interesting instrument where it can be made out of plastic and wood. Kazoo’s used to be called the “Down South Submarine.”  

Johnson said, “[The kazoo club is] good silly fun. Too much of school is about grades and stress and all that. Sometimes you just have to let your inner kid out.”