Sharon Isbin

Congratulations Sharon Isbin for winning a second Grammy Award in 2010.

Sharon Isbin and her SoloEtte Guitar

"To my great delight, someone finally created a brilliant device that is even better than the portable electronic keyboard that pianists use. It’s called the SoloEtte Travel Guitar, and when disassembled for traveling, it’s only 33 inches long and no wider than a guitar neck. In less than a minute, you pop on three aluminum tubes designed to recreate the shape of an actual guitar. Your friends can’t hear you practice, but you can by plugging earphones into a jack powered by a nine-volt battery. Since the nylon strings are tuned to pitch and the neck is identical to that of a real instrument, you can practice anything and experience the physical sensation of an actual guitar. It even plugs into an amplifier or sound system should you need to play a few gigs in between hikes. My first stop with the SoloEtte? I brought it to the Galapagos Islands and the Ecuadorian rain forest, and I am pleased to report that it worked wonderfully, surviving the rigors of dugout canoe travel, high humidity, and ravenous insects. It even works well in outer space. A SoloEtte was launched in the space shuttle Atlantis in November 1995 and presented (along with my American Landscapes CD) to the Russian cosmonauts as a gift during Atlantis’ rendezvous with the Russian space station Mir." Sharon Isbin