The Music Teacher: Job Description Overview–Your Ticket to Success In the Magical World of Music
Anyone who loves music and wants a career in the field owes it to him or herself to review a music teacher job description. Because, you know if you want to perform, write songs, record, that is often an unsteady means of support. The teaching option is one that many successful musicians and singers fall back on, that indeed is one of the keys to their success.
The employment outlook and median income for music teachers, from the present to 2014The outlook for music teaching careers is fair to good depending upon your region. The National Assoc. for Music Education reports that private teachers’ average rates are 15 – 60 per hour, US dollars. Public school music teachers, elementary and secondary, average 44,000 annually. College, university and conservatory instructors can earn 70,000 annually.
Settings in which to teach musicTeaching jobs can be in classrooms or with individual students. The most common employment for working musicians is tutoring students in their home recording studios or music stores. A home recording studio need not be anything more than a designated room or area of your residence. Alternatively, you can teach at the residence of the student. Focus may be at the hobby level, all the way up to teaching for professional performance.
The route of private students is easier to do in the sense that you don’t have to apply at a school, wait for an opening and so on. You also don’t need particular credentials as long as you have an aptitude for teaching and are top notch at what you do.
You must know music theory and you must be able to give written lessons as well as explaining and showing students how to play an instrument. The good news with private lessons is you only need to teach the instrument you specialize in.
The catch is rounding up enough students. Sales and public relations come in handy there: Give out and place cards or fliers all over your community, get a site or blog and utilize social networking to get your name out to parents or teens who seek a teacher.
If getting students on your own is something you can’t see yourself doing, the classroom may be the place for your teaching career. There you have options from teaching instrumental music, choir, or vocal coaching to music theory and appreciation. Settings run the gamut from elementary to college level, and the ultimate, a professor in music at a prestigious music conservatory.
At the elementary and secondary level, your duties typically include leading a school chorus, orchestra or marching band. This can be its own reward, particularly when you take the choir or musicians on filed trips and completions with other schools.
Classroom music teacher job requirements (including but not limited to the following):Ability to play an instrument, usually piano, and music theory proficiencyAbility to communicate well in the classroom, having rapport with studentsA bachelor’s degree in music at elementary and secondary schools, as well as a state teaching credential or certification.
At college level and beyond you must hold a Masters degree or better in music. To launch your job search upon completing your formal education, begin with a placement counselor at the college from which you graduate.
If this brief music teacher job description has you intrigued, go forward in your pursuit of music teaching. You’ll receive average to good compensation, and even more, a richly rewarding career doing that which you love, and interacting with those who share your love of the craft of music.
