as designed and built by Stephen J. Sheriff, luthier

Shimmering ellipse,

The plucked string, the bent pull-off,

The dwell of a note...

 

    Music is the fifth Element. I’m convinced of it. Look at the evidence: You’ve got Fire and Water and Air and Earth, all doing their elemental best to compose the world. Those four elements are supposed to make up everything. And yet, they largely remain separate, in dynamic opposition to one another. So I’m asking, why wouldn’t there be a fifth element that brings them all into union and symphony? Wouldn’t something like Music have to step in to make beauty and order out of all that elemental Chaos?

   When you get right down to it, Music encircles all four of the other elements. It’s Music that’s forming and shaping this crucible.

   Music is a truly universal language, spoken and understood by all of the world’s peoples. Music is the respiration of the human race, and it is the song of Nature, striving after its own nature. We are musical in our own nature. Music is in the air we all breathe. It’s hunted and gathered wisdom, histories of experience, secrets hidden in acorns that fall to the earth and take root.

 

    I am a tool maker, and more than that, I’m a tool myself, as much as are my saws, chisels, and pots of glue. I am an instrument, used for making instruments.   

   But that’s only the  beginning of it. A fine guitar isn’t truly made until it’s played. And then, it’s the Music, playing the Musician.

    The whole thing is so elegantly circular.  Guitar makers, instruments, musicians, and music are all links in an alchemical chain.

                                                                                       

                                                                                               so...

 

    Welcome, and thanks for visiting Edwinson Guitarland. I’ve been living here for ten years now. If you’ve never heard of Edwinson Guitars, you’re in a crowd of billions. I’ve been flying under the radar as a luthier for a decade in practice now. This is my first attempt at throwing up a website. That was a big hill to climb, because I’m a complete rube with computers, and have resisted falling under the digital thrall for as long as I could hold out. Well, I finally succumbed to it, and now I’m having a blast.

    I wanted to build this site myself, as an extension of my guitar making practice. Thanks to Apple’s iWeb software, even I could finally put an adequate site together, and still have full possession and control of the content.

  My presentation here will no doubt look naive to all of you digital natives and digital naturalized immigrants. Just as a fine guitar is incapable of misrepresenting itself, I also want to give you an unfiltered picture of my operation. All the edits, smudges, and blurs are mine, no apologies. All of the photo and text content herein is generated by the guy who wears my shoes.

   And many thanks to Apple for providing this awesome canvas for me to throw paint at. I hope you find some good information here. So you know, this is still a work in progress.

 

    I owe a great debt of gratitude to so many people who have been my teachers, mentors, inspirational beacons, and friends. I’m providing links to several notable personages throughout the text of the following pages. These include a number of other luthiers and musicians whom I admire and aspire to emulate.

    I intend to keep this website fully current, letting you know what’s on my workbench, what wild hair of an idea I’m onto now, and of course, photos of all my future progeny. This is just the first draft. So stay tuned, if you find something useful here.

   I hope I may build you a guitar someday, if we strike a chord with all the right notes. I’ve learned well that no one thing can be All Things. If our paths merge for a time, may it be to both, our mutual good fortune.

   Oh, and to answer that question you were about to ask...The Edwinson brand name is an homage to my Dad, Mr. Edwin Sheriff, who is a master of fine woodworking in the Asian, primarily Japanese and Chinese aspect. He is now retired, after a lifetime of doing the best he knew how. His furniture and other creations surpass any superlatives I can conjure, for their elegant combining of reverent classic, and inspired modern designs. My father handed on to me the woodworker’s gene, a profound affinity for Asian design, and a considerable measure of both challenge and inspiration. I feel a personal imperative to attempt to achieve a level of impeccability that my Dad has personified to me since I first met him, fifty one years ago.

  

   Cheers, and best of good fortune to you. Yours in fine music,   -Steve

 

Pre-launch addendum:  Thanksgiving, 2009...

   This website is almost done. This has been a day of quiet and contemplation for me, and upon reflection, putting this site together took about as long as it took for me to make my first guitar. The process has been amazingly similar in a lot of ways. Step after step, miraculously, it all comes together.

   As this is the first time Edwinson has walked into the broad daylight of the online universe, I invite your commentary and reaction to any of the opinions you find here, especially in the Design Philosophy section. I’d like to hear your opinions. Go to the Contacts page for my email handle.

  

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