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
Signal instrument Signal instrument A signal instrument is a musical instrument which is not only used for music as such, but also fit to give sound signals as a form of auditive communication, usually in the open air. Signal instruments are often contrasted with melodic and diatonic or chromatic instruments ("a musical (rather than signal) instrument" is not uncommon phrasing). To make the message audible at a distance, percussion and brass instruments, which are generally loud, are chiefly used for this purpose. There are contemporary instruments which evolved from signal instruments, such as the natural horn evolving to the trumpet. Before the