When thousands of them are going off at the same time, I think the note is smack between A and A#.
Does anyone have better pitch than me to confirm/correct?
Played correctly (see 1:57 of this) it seems to be C#.
Wikipedia says Bb for the standard 3’ long horn. I have actual pitch and that’s what I hear.
BTW, thanks for the spelling. I heard the word on the radio and thought it was booboozilla.
If we consider a vuvuzela to be a tuba with a 1 meter tube length, then the fundamental tone would have a wavelength of 2 meters, which corresponds to a frequency of 172 Hz. Using the modern Western standard of A440, this would be between 4 and 5 half-steps below A an octave below middle A, or somewhere between E and F (I suspect that the instrument typically isn’t exactly a meter long, but calibrated to fall exactly on one of these two). But most players probably aren’t hitting the fundamental; the first or second harmonic is generally easier to blow. The first harmonic would be at double the fundamental, 343 Hz, and would likewise be an E or F, one octave higher. The second harmonic would be triple the fundamental, 515 Hz, which between two and three half-steps above middle A, which would put it somewhere between B and C.
Or, going about it the other way, if as Wikipedia says the note is B flat, and if we assume that that’s the second harmonic, then that means that the length of the instrument should actually be 91 cm. A ten percent error is probably reasonable for trying to estimate the length from pictures, so that’s probably correct.
When thousands of them are going off at the same time, the pitch to me sounds like loud farts of people who don’t care about being obnoxious in a crowd.
I think they should be rammed down the owners’ throats and then let them belch up the dulcet tones with their last gasp of air.
Hopefully they do indeed ban these horrendous forms of sound pollution.
Just my subtle opinion.
This only error here is that instruments using a mouthpiece are closed tubes, not open. Which puts the fundamental at 4 meters/86 Hz. And only odd harmonics without lipping the tone.
I wonder how consistent the lengths of these are (although if they’re mass-produced, for a given game or region they probably are). I’m slightly curious if the overall ‘effective’ tone is an average of a variety of tones or the majority of what’s actually being produced. Possibly skilled players even blow in tune with each other.
Sorry, never mind about what I said. That only applies to a cylindrical tube, and from looking at it they may actually be conical, at least enough that they can produce harmonics like an open tube.
Hence why I said to consider it a tuba, not an organ pipe.
The true sound of the vuvuzela is that of me turning the station. 
Good lord, that little one at about 1:20 sounds exactly like a newborn crying. I think my milk let down (and I haven’t breastfed in 4 years!)
Whoa, is this still the Dope? I make a math mistake, and it goes unnoticed for seven posts? What’s this place coming to?
That should actually be 110 cm. I had a division upside-down, and only got an answer so close to the correct one because I was working in meters.
I love some of the comments on that article.
i hope this post gets consideration for end-of-year props…
According to an article I read Monday, they have no intention of banning them. It’s too bad, because watching a game that seems to take place in a hive full of angry bees is not too appealing.