Musician Barbara Stewart has performed at New York City's Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center. She has appeared on television with Conan O'Brien and Martha Stewart. She has studied at Columbia and Yale.She literally has written the book in her field, of which she is the foremost authority.
"It's hard to find real experts on the kazoo," Stewart said, " 'cause I might be it."
For most people, the kazoo -- a buzzing, cigar-shaped instrument -- is merely a toy. That's not so for Stewart, who on Sunday will preside over an attempt by hordes of fun-loving retirees to break the Guinness World Record for the world's largest band to play the instrument.
The attempt to break the current record of 2,679 kazooists, set last New Year's Eve in Rochester, N.Y., comes on the heels of last year's Guinness record Villagers set for the world's largest golf-cart parade. The 3,321-cart showing nearly tripled the previous record.
If Sunday's performance doesn't go down in Guinness lore, too, it at least will be remembered for its sound -- something like the din of a million humongous bumblebees.
"It has been said that the kazoo is to music what the full-body cast is to ballet," Stewart said. "But in the hands of an expert, it's at its best."
Stewart, 66, began playing the kazoo after she finished flute studies at the Eastman School of Music in her hometown of Rochester, N.Y. An instructor told her everyone should be an expert at something, so, stuck in a crowded field of flutists, Stewart set out to master something else.
"I turned immediately to kazooing," Stewart said, "where the field was wide open."
Former former health-club owner David Izzo admits that playing a kazoo is a departure from managing a staff of 180. But Izzo, 59, said he's no different than most of the retirees who will join him Sunday.
"The people in The Villages are just reliving their teenage years," he said. "They had to be a certain kind of person because they had family to provide for and so forth. Now, they're out here and they want to have fun."
Izzo said he thought of using kazoos for a fundraiser as he listened to the radio about three months ago. The disc jockey played a jazzy tune, and Izzo heard the buzz of a kazoo in the background.
"I start humming to myself, and one thing led to the other and I said, 'OK, well, how 'bout a kazoo?' " Izzo recalled. "If you can breathe, you can play the kazoo."
It is indeed a simple instrument. The kazoo has no finger holes or moving parts, and a slight hum is all it takes to get going.
Originally, a related instrument was used in Africa to communicate with the spirit world, said Karen Smith, curator of the Kazoo Museum in Eden, N.Y. But the kazoo itself was invented in Macon, Ga., in 1840, when Alabama Vest and Thaddeus Von Clegg constructed the instrument.
By the early 1900s, a metal kazoo was being produced in the same factory that now houses the Kazoo Museum. Today, Smith sells kazoos shaped like French horns, trumpets and trombones.
"It looks cool, but it doesn't change the sound," she said. "What you get out of it is, most times, what you put in."
Information thanks from : Adrian G. Uribarri can be reached at auribarri@orlandosentinel.com or 352-742-5926.