I believe that even in 2026, every musician, student or professional, should have a website, especially those of us whose work can include so many different things that it becomes difficult to explain everything in a short social media bio.
And if you’ve been putting it off because building a website sounds complicated, I want to make this abundantly clear: if you can pass ear training or Western music history classes, you can build a basic bio website in 45 minutes.
All you need is a short biography, a photograph, and a way for someone to contact you. If you're feeling really confident, you can add some extra videos and photos into a media tab, and maybe a page offering lessons. The great thing is, you've probably already built all these things for an application or class. The only task left is gathering them together and paying the small domain and hosting fee, which is significantly less than buying a new pair of mallets.
With so much of our professional activity happening through Instagram, YouTube, and other social platforms right now, it’s reasonable to wonder whether a website is still necessary. Someone can already hear you play, follow your projects, and send you a message through social media. What else does a website accomplish?
For me, the answer comes down to making it easy for people to understand your work and take the next step in getting to know you and, hopefully, leading to contacting you. Imagine a parent looking for percussion lessons. They find a video of you playing marimba and like what they hear. Can they easily find out where you teach? Whether you work with beginners? Whether you also teach snare drum or help students prepare for college auditions? Or imagine a professor considering you for a guest artist visit. They might want to hear a full performance, read your biography, and see what you could offer their students. Having those materials organized in one place makes their job way easier than having to hunt through instagram. These are simple things, but they matter. Someone who is interested in working with you should have a clear way to move that interest forward.
In no way am I, of all people, saying that social media is no longer useful. I think there is a lot of value in sharing what you’re practicing, posting performances, and letting people see the process behind your work. A website gives those people somewhere to go when they want more information in a slightly more professional setting.
It also gives you a place to actively choose what someone hears first. Your most recent post may be a quick practice clip that doesn't represent you to the same level as a studio-edited performance. On your website, you can put that recording where people will actually find it.
The setup itself doesn’t need to become a major undertaking. For example (not a sponsored post), I use Squarespace, which gives you easy-to-navigate templates and a visual editor that lets you move text, images, and other elements around without writing your own code. You can start with an existing layout and replace the sample content with your own. Hosting is included, and you can build during a free trial before deciding to pay. This means that, for a busy musician, putting together a barebones musician website is really just copying and pasting into a template.
The things I would start with on your website:
A short introduction: Your name, where you’re based, and what you do.
A biography: Enough background to help someone get to know your work past an Instagram bio.
A few recordings: Choose performances that represent you well.
Teaching or performance information: Explain what someone can contact you about.
Contact information: Make it so simple that someone’s grandparents could figure out how to contact you.
That can all fit on one page. If separate pages make it easier to navigate later, you can add them.
One of the biggest things I hear from students is that they want to wait until they have either a more impressive resume or more professional recordings before publishing a website. But this is a bad idea and not the best route to take in my opinion. A student’s website can accurately represent a student’s work. An emerging professional’s website can grow as new projects happen. There is value in having a clear introduction to where you are right now and allowing others to still find you.
The same applies to maintaining it. When you have a stronger recording, add it. When your teaching location changes, update it. If you list upcoming performances, keep those dates current. Small updates are much easier when you already have a basic structure in place.
We spend so many hours in the practice room perfecting our work, so why do we hesitate so much at the hour it will take to set up a website? A simple website can help us find places to perform the music we love so much, or give us opportunities we might not have expected.
