![The origins of rock music are (partly) in Basel... Illustration by Marco Heer](https://blog.nationalmuseum.ch/app/uploads/titel-e-gitarre-300x225.jpg)
The electric guitar and its Basel origins
In the early 20th century, Karl Schneider and Adolph Rickenbacker turned a conventional string instrument into an electric super device for hard sounds and the big stage.
Bob Dylan playing electric guitar was not to everyone’s taste... YouTube
![Patent for the frying-pan guitar with the pick-up developed by Beauchamp.](https://blog.nationalmuseum.ch/app/uploads/patent-beauchamp-190x300.jpg)
![Rickenbacker’s “frying pan”, 1932.](https://blog.nationalmuseum.ch/app/uploads/gitarre-237x300.jpg)
![The new music from the US fascinated the young Karl Schneider and his wife Marie Wenk.](https://blog.nationalmuseum.ch/app/uploads/Plattenspieler-300x218.jpg)
Starting out as a violin maker
![Karl Schneider as a young violin maker in Paul Meinel’s workshop in Basel, c. 1928.](https://blog.nationalmuseum.ch/app/uploads/Geigenwerkstatt-300x200.jpg)
![Grando electric jazz guitar from the 1930s, produced by Karl Schneider.](https://blog.nationalmuseum.ch/app/uploads/Grando-138x300.jpg)
![Prospectus for Rio guitars from 1949.](https://blog.nationalmuseum.ch/app/uploads/Prospekt-Rio-Gitarren-219x300.jpg)
![Django Reinhardt, photographed in the Aquarium Jazz Club in New York, c. 1946.](https://blog.nationalmuseum.ch/app/uploads/django-reinhardt-286x300.jpg)
The Minstrels also swore by Karl Schneider’s instruments. YouTube
![Karl Schneider returned to violin making towards the end of his working life. Photo from 1977.](https://blog.nationalmuseum.ch/app/uploads/Geigenbau-253x300.jpg)