I’ve written several different articles based on blogs written by John Ericson (you can find a few here, here, and here but there are several others). To date, those have all been from his wonderful Horn Matters website, but today I’m writing a couple of things about his new website – www.johnericsonhorn.com.

John first mentioned his new website in a HornMatters blog from last week. In that post, he talks about some of his considerations in deciding how to set up his new site that I though were worth mentioning:

• John picked WordPress for his personal site. This is the platform that I prefer to work in with my web clients for several reasons. WordPress itself is free, you can customize it to an absurd degree, and since it’s simply a database and a bunch of PHP scripts, it’s portable! Squarespace/Wix/Weebly/etc. are not bad, but you can’t (easily) take your site anywhere else if you want additional features or to save money down the road. It does take a bit more maintenance to keep it safe, but I think that it’s worth it.
• At the end of his post, he briefly mentions how important it is that everyone has a website. I’ve mentioned the same thing before, but it bears repeating for anyone who doesn’t (yet) have a website.

Regarding the actual content and layout of his site:

• I like his horn page where he discusses some of his instruments and various project horns. I have a fairly popular page where I talk about my favorite horn/tech/gadget things, but this got me inspired to try and make a more horn-specific page.
• His “Ericson Framework” page lays out his teaching philosphy and approach. It covers eight areas of playing (and life) and any student would do well to make sure that they are covering each of these areas in some way.
• It’s obvious that John keeps busy! He has pages for his 12(!) books (in print and Kindle editions), his 3 CDs, and his Horn Notes podcast.

I’m looking forward to see what new content he puts up on the site in the coming months!

On a related tangent – if you’re wanting a website but don’t know how to get started, get in touch with me! While I do build sites professionally, if you want to do it yourself, I’m happy to help point you in the right direction!