Teach piano, guitar, voice or strings one student at a time. Most music teachers work for themselves.
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Programs in the fields this career usually comes through. Each has its own page: what it takes to get in, the courses you need and what it costs.
The median pay is about $33,000 a year. Across everyone in the job it runs from about $33,000 at the lower end to about $75,000 at the upper end. The source is listed under Sources at the end of this page.
2 to 5 years after high school, on the usual route.
$3,000 to $55,000 all in for tuition, fees, exams and kit. Living costs are not counted.
No. There is no licence to hold, though many employers still ask for training or a certificate.
Moderate demand nationally, from government outlook data. Demand varies by region, so check your area.
Or read the whole thing here
What you earn and what it costs to get there.
Median
$33,000
Lower end, the same as the median
$33,000
Upper end
$75,000
Job Bank's national figures for music teachers who give private, conservatory or studio lessons, from the 2021 Census: a median of $32,867 a year and an upper end of $74,500. Job Bank gives the same $32,867 for the lower end. These are yearly earnings, not an hourly wage, because many people in this work are self-employed. Job Bank counts private music teachers with musicians and singers.
$25 to $31 per half hour
Average private lesson price at Canada's biggest lesson chain
Teach at a school and it takes a cut in exchange for finding you students and giving you a room. Teach in your own studio and you keep the whole fee but do your own advertising, billing and scheduling.
$38,779 a year
The median in British Columbia, from the Census
Ontario's median is $38,308 and Quebec's $34,137. Most teachers start with a few students after school and grow by word of mouth. Income is lean in the summer unless you run camps or keep adult students.
Roughly, all in
$3,000 to $55,000
Tuition, fees, exams and kit. Not rent, food or travel
Nobody requires a credential to teach music privately, so the low end is somebody who already plays, buys a decent used instrument and pays for a few conservatory exam levels. The high end is a four year music degree at 12,000 a year, an instrument, and several more years of your own lessons at 30 to 60 an hour. The genuine cost of this career usually starts in childhood and is spread over a decade of lessons, which no single figure captures. Teaching space, whether a room at home or rented studio time, is the other running expense.
Nobody requires a credential to teach privately. What costs money is getting good enough that parents choose you, and that starts in childhood.
Private lessons in your own studio
You set the rate and keep all of it.
Teaching at a music school
The school takes a cut, but it brings the students and handles payment.
Group classes and summer camps
Several students pay for the same hour of your time.
Playing on the side
Accompanying, church work, weddings and gigs. Most teachers mix teaching with performing.
The exact path from high school to qualified.
There is no licence. The path is getting good, then learning how to teach.
Learn your instrument properly
Childhood onward
Years of lessons and daily practice, usually working up through graded conservatory exams.
High school
Grades 9 to 12
Music and theory courses, plus any band, choir or ensemble you can join.
Pick a credential, or skip it
0 to 4 years
A performance diploma such as the ARCT (Associate of the Royal Conservatory), a university music degree, or neither. Private teaching requires none of them.
Learn to teach
Pedagogy courses teach you how beginners actually learn, what order to introduce skills, and how to keep a 7 year old going.
Build a studio
Several years
First students through family, your old teacher, local schools and community boards. Word of mouth does the rest.
Music
Ensemble playing, sight reading and performing in front of people.
Music theory or harmony
You will teach it, so you need it cold.
English
Explaining an abstract idea to a child is a language skill.
Business or accounting
You will be self-employed, invoicing families and filing your own taxes.
Anyone can advertise music lessons. Because of that, parents look for signals: a conservatory diploma, a music degree, exam results from your students, or membership in a registered teachers' association. The Ontario Registered Music Teachers' Association (ORMTA) asks active members for a music degree or a conservatory associate diploma plus teaching experience. Teaching music in a public school is a different job: that one needs a teaching certificate from your province.
In Quebec, school music teachers usually take a music program at CEGEP (public college) first, so the auditions start at 16 or 17, before university.
Finish Secondary V
Age 16 or 17
Keep up your instrument or voice and your music theory. You will audition for college.
Music DEC (Diploma of College Studies) (501.A0)
2 years
A 2 year pre-university program. Admission needs an audition on your instrument or voice, plus a theory and ear training test. In English at Vanier College.
Music education bachelor's
4 years
120 credits over 4 years, with school placements. In French at Université Laval, Université du Québec à Montréal and Université du Québec à Rimouski. Laval also takes students with another DEC who pass its audition.
Pass the French test
During the degree
French universities require a written French test (TECFÉE). Laval asks for 70% on both parts.
Get your teaching diploma
After graduating
Your university recommends you to the Ministère de l'Éducation (Quebec's education ministry), which issues it. It covers music in elementary and secondary schools.
Get hired
Varies
Many start as substitutes, which needs no licence in a subject related to your studies. A student with a job offer can teach on a provisional licence.
McGill's music education degrees are not taking new students while the programs are under review, so check before you plan around them. Bishop's University offers a Bachelor of Education in Teaching and Learning of the Creative Arts with a music option. English universities use the EETC (English Exam for Teacher Certification) instead of the French test.
Things you don't need, but that help.
Students who pass exams well
Results travel through a parent network faster than any advertisement.
A second instrument
Piano plus voice, or guitar plus bass, doubles who can book you.
Teaching theory
Theory students often come in groups and need it for their exams.
Online lessons
Lets you teach students in other towns and keep them when families move.
A police check for working with children
Many schools and parents expect it, and it is cheap.
A clear cancellation and payment policy
The difference between a business and an expensive hobby.
A teaching space that does not annoy anyone
Neighbours, roommates and family all hear every lesson.
Patience with beginners
You will hear the same wrong note for a month before it fixes itself.
Day to day, pros and cons, where you'd work.
Mornings are yours: practise, plan lessons, chase invoices, message parents. Teaching starts when school lets out and runs to about 9pm, back to back in half hour and hour blocks. Saturday mornings are usually full. Spring is exam and recital season, which means extra rehearsals and a lot of nervous students.
The good
The hard parts
Things people don't tell you.
The Royal Conservatory of Music runs a graded exam program used across Canada and the United States, from first levels up to the ARCT (Associate of the Royal Conservatory) diploma. Those exam levels are the common language teachers and parents use.
The Ontario Registered Music Teachers' Association says it has more than 1,100 Registered Music Teachers and related members, and it is run by a volunteer council. Many members teach from small studios.
Job Bank counts private music teachers together with musicians and singers: about 29,700 people in 2023, and 43% of them were 50 or older.
Every list is built from the same numbers shown above, so you can see where this career sits next to the others.
Teaching first, then the rest of the field. See every career in education.
Last checked October 2026. Pay figures are typical full-time annual amounts in Canadian dollars, based on Government of Canada Job Bank wage data and published salary grids. They vary by province, employer and experience. Tuition is for domestic students. How every figure on this site is sourced and checked.
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