Kay Musical Instrument Company Kay Musical Instrument Company Kay Musical Instrument Company was a musical instrument manufacturer of the United States, in operation from the 1930s until the 1960s. Kay was established in 1931 in Chicago, Illinois, by Henry Kay Kuhrmeyer, from the assets of the former Stromberg-Voisinet (founded as Groeschel Mandolin Company in 1890). Kay offered their first electric guitar in 1936 — five years after the Rickenbacker "Frying pan", and the same year as the Gibson ES-150. However, the Kuhrmeyer-owned Stromberg-Voisinet brand had produced the Stromberg Electro even earlier, in 1928, making the short-lived model arguably the first commercial electric guitar. The
EWI (musical instrument) the EWI keys do not move (instead, they sense when fingers are touching them by body capacitance, much like an elevator button works), the instrument is very agile. It also requires substantially less breath control than an acoustic instrument; breath sensitivity is one of the parameters that can be adjusted to the player's preference. Unlike acoustic wind instruments, the fingering is identical in every octave. The current octave is determined by putting your left thumb between any two of the eight rollers. Touching a plate next to the rollers sends portamento by default. There are also pitchbend up and down