The Plectrum Spectrum : Exhibit: From the Buck Rogers-esque Rickenbacher to the beach culture Fender, the guitars on display in Santa Monica are tuned to their times.

The Santa Monica Heritage Museum resides in an 1890s American Colonial Revival style house, the bottom floor of which is devoted to replicating the furnishings and appointments of that era. It’s easy to imagine the antique rockers in the sitting room being peopled by gentlefolk from that time.

It’s equally easy to imagine them recoiling from the sound coming from the floor above. Upstairs, the museum is housing what they believe is the first serious show devoted to this century’s favorite lease-breaker, the guitar.

“The Ultimate Guitar Show--the History of California Guitars,” which opened Thursday and runs to May 2, includes about 110 pieces, from the 1930s to the present, that say a good deal about their home state.

You won’t find many gracefully arched-top instruments of fine seasoned wood here. While East Coast luthiers early in the century were refining the ages-old tradition of European wood working, Californians--ignorant or contemptuous of that tradition--were building instruments that appeared to be more influenced by the science fiction pulp magazines of the time.

The oldest instruments in the “Ultimate” exhibit aren’t the tentative refinements of conventional guitars one might expect but, rather, odd shapes of gleaming metal and dense Bakelite (the plastic used in bowling balls and vintage radios) that reflect a collective will to get as far “out there” as one could.

The exhibit incorporates blow-ups of period advertising and catalogue materials, photos of guitar production processes, and even a mock-up of a luthier’s work bench, complete with sawdust on the floor. There are two Fender guitars that patrons are welcome to play through headphones to get that hands-on experience.

Don’t go looking for guitars of famous artists--the distinction is in the history, design or influence of the guitars themselves.

Even unplugged and hanging on a wall, they are a loud expression. Outside of the automobile, the guitar may be this country’s most creative blending of mass-consumption form and function. As instruments of creativity, they seem peculiarly attuned to their times.

“Brother musician, listen to a miracle” the L.A.-based Rickenbacher company humbly proclaimed in ads after issuing the world’s first electric guitar in 1932. Their late ‘30s lap steel guitars look like something Buck Rogers might have used for serenading along a Martian canal. They bespeak a time when science was our friend, and the more of it they could cram into one instrument, the better. The company’s more conventional instruments of the ‘60s, by contrast, so anticipated the style and flair of the Beatle-led British Invasion that most people thought the California guitars were English-made.

Leo Fender’s guitars of the same period were unmistakably Californian. Their twangy tone was the official sound of surf music, and a sleek-lined candy apple red or sea-foam green Stratocaster was as much an expression of the beach youth culture as an Ed “Big Daddy” Roth dragster.

The original purpose behind the West Coast revolution in guitar making was to make it louder. Until then, the guitar--chiefly considered a “parlor” instrument--had been drowned out by virtually every other band instrument.

In the first great salvo of the weirdness that was to characterize California guitar design, L.A.’s National Co. issued guitars made of nickel silver in the 1920s. The instruments never quite caught on for their intended jazz band use, but, sold through Sears, Roebuck & Co. and other mail-order outfits, Mississippi Delta blues musicians found the raw, powerful tone of the guitar--and doubtless its metallic durability--to be features well suited to their work.

Later, Fender electrics were the partner of all stripes of American roots musicians. They were picked up by hard-touring Western Swing and Bakersfield musicians, by bluesmen creating brash, distorted music to match their new big city environment in Chicago. Musicians in the ‘50s discovered what rock ‘n’ roll music was on the fretboards of their Fenders.

The influential musicians of the last 40 years who didn’t play Fenders would be far easier to note than all those who did. It is worth arguing that their music--facilitated by the electric guitar--has been the ultimate ambassador of the American spirit.

“Poetry’s great, but when you connect it with a guitar, that’s when something powerful happens,” says contemporary guitar maker Danny Ferrington. “You hook Bob Dylan up to a guitar and it resonates through a culture.”

According to Santa Monica-based Ferrington, “There’s something about the creative bent of California. Most of the people that come out to the edge of the country here don’t want to do what’s been done before. It’s always been a place for innovation.

“I just read that every major car company has a design headquarters in California, because so many trends are started here. It’s the same with musical instruments. I couldn’t do what I do here when I used to live in Nashville, because the musicians would go, ‘Oh that looks weird.’ The minute I came out here, musicians were saying, ‘Hey, that looks cool. Show me something else I haven’t seen before.’

“There is something about being out here that really sets you free. I get to reinvent the guitar every time I make one.”

That’s the spirit “Ultimate” exhibit curator Joe Phelps said he was looking to reflect. A Heritage Museum board member, former musician and ad executive, Phelps put the show together over the last three months, with the full-time participation of museum director Tobi Smith. The state’s biggest guitar maker, Fender, provided financial assistance and instruments. Most of the vintage guitars were loaned by local collector-dealers Norm Harris of Norm’s Rare Guitars and Albert Molinaro of Guitars R Us.

The show came together so quickly through the involvement of the two collectors and by the proximity of the National Assn. of Music Merchants trade show in Anaheim in January. Under one roof there, Phelps was able to meet with most of the state’s guitar builders.

Phelps had an advantage in gaining Fender’s support in that his ad agency represents Fender.

“I can see some conflict of interest in my representing them and doing this (exhibit). But if what we had here was representative of the numbers of guitars sold, 95% would be Fenders. Then, to consider the longevity of the company, it would be even more. We’ve scaled it back so it’s only half Fender, so it’s a credible deal,” he said.

“It seems if you don’t play guitar, you at least know someone who does, and they seem to feel especially close to the instrument,” Ferrington said. “Maybe it’s because a guitar is designed to fit on your body, where a piano isn’t unless you’re trying to kill somebody. Guitars are glamorous, sexy and a very portable, sometimes very simple, very powerful form of expression. I could show somebody three chords and he could play every Hank Williams song ever written.”

* On March 30 at 7:30 p.m . , the museum will feature collector-writer Robb Lawrence with a slide show and lecture on California guitars. Information: (310) 392-8537.

Museum’s 10 ‘Ultimate’ Guitars

Ten guitars not to miss at Santa Monica Heritage Museum’s “The Ultimate Guitar Show--the History of California Guitars”:

* National Style O. This 1930s model of the metal resonator guitar that originated in the 1920s still gleams. A Deco masterpiece, with palm trees and clouds etched into the metal nickel silver surface.

* The Rickenbacher Electro “Frying Pan.” From the early ‘30s, this was the first electric guitar to be marketed. Instead of simply slapping an amplifying pickup on a conventional guitar, the company made an aluminum instrument of an inglorious design that musicians aptly dubbed the Frying Pan.

* Weissenborn Hawaiian guitar. While an acoustic instrument, this L.A.-made ‘30s guitar shows a typically Californian disregard for tradition: The koa-wood guitar is pear-shaped and has a hollow neck to enhance the tone.

* 1950 Fender Broadcaster. Leo Fender’s first production-line electric guitar may be one of the pivotal inventions of the 20th Century. Its simple, brilliantly functional design made it the working-man’s guitar, arriving just in time for rock ‘n’ roll. Though its slab body and butterscotch finish can induce rapture in collectors, it’s not an aesthetic marvel.

* Fender Stratocaster. The sleek, aerodynamic Strat looks like something dolphins from outer space might play. Though it is now the most common, most copied guitar design in the world, there was nothing remotely like it before it was introduced in 1954.

* Fender Rocketcaster. This one-of-a-kind Custom Shop model is a grand cross between a Fender Jazzmaster and a ‘50s Oldsmobile, with a three-tone pink, black and creme finish and chrome trim.

* 1969 Turner. This ornately carved hippie-era instrument with hand-crafted metalwork reminds that there is also a northern half of the state. Marin County guitar maker Rick Turner clearly built this instrument under the influence of the Renaissance Faire craftsmanship, mysticism and back-to-nature ethos that permeated that time and place.

* K.B. Magic Root. Another northern masterpiece by maker Ken Bebensee. This is about as back-to-nature as they get--a beautifully shaped manzanita burl with some electronics and a neck of flamed maple and purple-heart and ebony attached.

* Ferrington guitars. Santa Monica luthier Danny Ferrington builds exquisitely crafted, radically designed acoustic instruments. Ferrington lives near the museum, and anticipates rotating many of his guitars in and out of the exhibit.

* WRC guitar. Wayne Charvel has made a Strat-influenced instrument that must qualify as one of the world’s most labor-intensive guitars. The neck is inlaid with dolphin-shaped, abalone fret markers, while the body is covered in diamond-shaped pieces of blue-green abalone.