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
Berlin Musical Instrument Museum Hotteterre. Curt Sachs, Director from 1919-1933, brought a scientific approach to the collections. He was one of the founders of modern organology (the study of musical instruments) and co-authored the Sachs-Hornbostel system of instrument classification. The Museum rose to international importance and his catalogs form the basis of academic research papers to this day. When the Nazis seized power in 1933, Sachs was dismissed from his post by the Nazi Party and forced to emigrate because he was Jewish. In 1935, the musical instrument collection was removed from the Academy to the new National Institute for German Music Research headed