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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.
The guitars logo has been touched up as it was chipping away from age. Has new string, extra bridge pieces and comes with carry case.