Portfolio

This research portfolio will cover the necessary information on how to develop a career in music education. It will primarily focus on private music tutoring in piano, although it will cover elements of music teaching within the school system. It explores things required to work in this profession, such as academic and professional qualifications, and personal skills and attributes it is helpful to possess. It details what a typical day would involve for a music tutor, before covering the challenges presented by the role, such as financial and legal challenges, but also personal and intellectual challenges. Finally, it covers progression and development, considering potential marketing ideas and career progression.

Things Required:

To work as a music teacher within the schooling system, specific qualifications are needed. For example, Department of Education (n.d.) details how music teachers need GCSEs grade 4 or above in Maths and English, a bachelor’s degree, and government-provided teacher training. Contrastingly, the qualifications needed for private tutoring are much vaguer. Musician’s Union (2023) explores how although private tutors don’t technically need any teaching qualifications, it can be helpful to gain some to increase professionalism, explain charging higher fees and increase job satisfaction. They suggest Guidhall’s PGCert in Performance Teaching, a masters-level course designed for music tutors, a CME from ABRSM, a qualifications that guarantee QTS (Qualified Teacher Status) such as Manchester Metropolitan University’s PGCE in Secondary Music with Specialist Instrument Teaching. To teach effectively, one must also possess personal qualities that are suitable to the profession. For example, adaptability. In 2021, music tutor Katie Wills explained how it is crucial as a teacher to adapt to each student’s interests and needs, focusing on the importance of learning their likes and dislikes. This enables the teacher to engage the student more effectively, either with repertoire they are likely to enjoy or through adapting their lesson structure. Wills also highlights the importance of being encouraging and positive, which can help motivate students. Other teachers such as Janna Williamson (2025), stress that knowing what level of capability the teacher can handle is a skill to be mastered. She states that ‘as teachers, we must always ahead of our students’. She also, like Wills, highlights the adaptability required in this profession. For example, with more advanced students, one should aim to be a coach rather than a teacher, conveying the need to adapt teaching style depending on the age and ability of the student. Therefore, to be a private music tutor, it can be helpful to gain optional qualifications to further your skill as a tutor, however this is not necessary. Instead, it is necessary that you possess skills such as adaptability, positivity, and self-knowledge.

Duties and Responsibilities: Daily and Long Term

A private music tutor’s daily duties and responsibilities are varied and extensive, often depending on what services they offer. For example, Stathia Orwig (2016), a private piano tutor, explains how she starts the day with admin work, answering emails from parents, before looking for new repertoire for her students. Afterwards, she runs a baby music workshop in the morning. In the afternoon/evening, she runs private lessons with school-aged children. Within the lesson, she starts with small talk, before working on scales and pieces. At the end of her day, she writes notes on the lessons and updates parents on what has been learnt. Frances Wilson (2010), another piano teacher, also exchanges pleasantries with her students before teaching begins, showing a common strategy shared by many teachers. However, she doesn’t run baby classes, or keep notes on her lessons, instead trusting her students to remember their notebooks. Overall, the main duty of all music teachers is to support their students in their learning. While some prefer a more technical mindset, teachers like Linda Gould take inspiration from musicians like Victor Wooten, who believed that in order to support their students, teachers must act as more of a guide than a drill sergeant (Wooten, 2008 in Gould, 2021). Other teachers such as Isabelle from Muso Music Academy appear to take a more strategic approach, by enrolling young children in separate classes in theory, singing techniques, and piano tutoring (2022). Overall, a tutor’s duties and responsibilities vary depending on the different sessions and services they offer their clientele, but most teachers have an emphasis on planning and executing friendly private lessons, that make their students feel comfortable. All teachers’ main aim is to support their students in their journey through music, although they often employ contrasting methods and teaching styles to achieve this.

Financial and Legal Challenges:

The financial and legal challenges presented by this profession vary greatly depending on the teacher’s employment status. Musician’s Union (2022) describes how teachers employed by a school or music centre are likely to have a fixed wage and workers’ rights such as holiday pay, sick pay, redundancy pay etc. However, if the teacher is self-employed they have to consider these costs in the rates they set themselves. Moreover, it describes how if a musician is self-employed, they have to decide whether to operate as a sole trader, meaning their personal finances are directly linked to those of the business, or as a limited company, meaning the business exists as a separate entity, from which the teacher pays themselves a wage. Although this sounds safer, limited companies must pay corporations tax, and could pay VAT depending on their earnings, meaning their gross income is reduced when compared to the income of a sole trader. Self-employed people have to pay their own tax and national insurance, which are worked out through the HMRC’s self-assessment program (GOV.UK, n.d.). They can do this via the government website, or by requesting a paper SA100 form, where they fill out their spendings and earnings, so their taxes can be calculated. People in self-employment also fill out ‘supplementary pages’, extra forms with the codes SA103S or SA103F (GOV.UK, n.d.). When entering self-employment, teachers must also get their own enhanced DBS certificate with barred lists, which is needed when working with children and vulnerable adults (Musician’s Union, 2026). Self-employed teachers can access these via institutions such as the Musician’s Union (Musician’s Union, 2026) or the Independent Society of Musicians (ISM, n.d.). Organisations such as these charge a fee ranging from around £65-£70 to help you gain this certificate. Aside from legal challenges, being self-employed can have financial risks. For example, it is up to the teacher to decide what rates to charge. Organisations like the Musician’s Union recommend £44 per hour for individual lessons (2025). However, musicians advertising in my area from agencies charge somewhere between £25-50 an hour (superprof, 2025), while Karen Halsey, a non-agency musician in my area, charges £17.50 per half an hour (n.d.). Teachers also have to factor in the fluctuations in their income caused by cancelled lessons or non-payments. Music teacher and researcher Sally Cathcart described in 2019 how, when charging parents half-termly, she would have to continuously chase them up for payments, causing considerable distress and uncertainty. Although the legal challenges cannot be avoided, the financial ones can. Sally Cathcart and Sharon Mark-Teggart described in 2019 their switch to yearly contracts for their private piano students. This involves the parent singing a legally binding contract to set up a standing order paying monthly fees for 10 months of lessons, with a 2-month break for the summer holiday. This can help avoid parents not paying for lessons, with Mark-Teggart stating that “since setting up the standing order, I have never chased a single parent”. Overall, there are many financial and legal issues to consider, but the weight of these can be lessened through yearly contracts and a disciplined attitude toward admin.

Intellectual and Personal Challenges:

There are also intellectual and personal challenges associated with this profession. In 2019 Cathcart and Mark-Teggart also discussed issues such as feeling swamped by admin, and feeling undervalued by parents and students. They explained how constant cancellations left them feeling unappreciated by their clients, and how make-up lessons started infringing on their family time. They also were completely overwhelmed when invoicing parents every half-term or term, feeling as if their admin responsibilities were overshadowing their teaching. Again, their solution was to switch to a yearly contract. The contract solved the issue of make-up lessons, by in Mark-Teggart’s case eliminating the right to make up a missed lesson, and in Cathcart’s case scheduling all make-up lessons in a 3-week block at the end of the teaching year. They also felt both the students and parents were more committed to the lessons, making their teaching experience more enjoyable and fulfilling. Finally, it helped solve overwhelming admin tasks, by completing all paperwork at the start of a teaching year. Other teachers such as Gavin Stewart (2025) describe feeling impostor syndrome and self doubt at their teaching abilities. Stewart tackled this by networking with other teachers, and by tracking student successes and breakthroughs. Teachers can also struggle with separating their personal and professional lives, with Doreen Hall in 2019 struggling to teach when stressful occurrences were happening in her personal life. Hall describes methods for compartmentalising while teaching, such as writing down your personal worries before entering the teaching room, and focusing on enjoying time with your students. Finally, in 2022 music teacher Tim Topham described the negative cycle students and teachers can find themselves in, where they complete 3 exam pieces per year, and don’t cover any other repertoire, making lessons intellectually dull for the student. He stressed the importance of breaking out of this cycle, for the student primarily but also for the teacher’s job satisfaction, as their students are more likely to leave their lessons as accomplished musicians when exposed to many different styles of music. Therefore, music teaching contains several intellectual and personal challenges, such as struggling to teach a varied repertoire, teaching when going through a difficult time, and feeling undervalued and swamped by admin. These issues can be solved through clearer agreements with clients, adaptation of lesson plans and emotional grounding techniques.

Progression and Development:

When teaching privately, there aren’t many opportunities for career progression, outside of building your own clientele base. However, teachers can choose to partake in CPD (Continuing Professional Development). In 2023 Musician’s Union describes how this can include webinars, educational courses, and joining online networks. Teachers could also choose to keep a reflective journal as part of their CPD, reviewing year on year what they have changed about their practice and how it has helped or hindered them. However, perhaps the most obvious step in career progression is opening up their own teaching studio. Teacher Ashley Danyew (n.d.) describes some of the main steps of opening your own studio as mapping out your lesson schedule, which can help reduce lessons seeping into your personal time, setting your tuition rates, and deciding on studio policies, such as make-up lessons and cancellations. When starting your own business, perhaps the most important element to consider is how you are going to promote and market it. Ariane Paras and Laura Ferreiro from Musician’s Union (2022) describe how to best promote your music business. They discuss shifting your focus onto the student, and emphasising the service you have to offer other people, rather than your own need for clients. They also encourage teachers to use their personality in their marketing approach, in order to ensure the clientele you attract are right for your business. Teachers should also include the challenges they’ve overcome musically, and their personal story, in order to stand out from other teaching practices. Other teachers encourage their students to bring friends to recitals, ask schools to give parents leaflets, or advertise at local community events such as farmers markets (teachpianotoday, n.d.). By combining these methods, teachers could appeal to both an online audience with their personal story and studio information, and make in-person connections within their community to aid their networking. Therefore, music teachers can progress within their career through opening their own studios, learning how to promote their business, and engaging in CPD.

To conclude, private music teaching has many challenges. Some of them are legal or financial, such as DBS checks or frequent lesson cancellations, while others are more personal, such as how to teach effectively when experiencing issues in your private life. However, there are many benefits to teaching music privately, such as the opportunities to progress your career by opening your own studio, and working on your marketing techniques to aid your business. The job can also be incredibly satisfying, with the main duty of helping your students become accomplished musicians, not to mention the freedom to arrange your day how you wish through deciding your own hours, but also by choosing what services you offer as a teacher. As there are no specific academic qualifications required, most musicians can try to start a teaching business, although the most effective ones will be those with qualities such as adaptability, positivity, and self-knowledge. Essentially, teaching music privately can be an excellent way to gain a more regular form of income as a musician, either as part of a portfolio career or as a main profession, as long as you possess the right qualities and work ethic to make it work.

Bibliography

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