Can I teach music without a degree?
This is a great question! The very short answer is YES.
The long answer requires asking some more questions, such as...
- Are you referring to having no music degree or to having any undergraduate degree?
- What setting are you wanting to teach in?
- What kind of music are you wanting to teach?
- What time of day are you wanting to teach?
- What type of students are you wanting to teach?
- What background knowledge to do already have as credentials?
These are some of the first questions you'd need to answer in order to answer the initial question. For example, I teach a few homeschool choirs (which are bursting at the seams, I almost need to start another one to keep up with the demand!). I have a music education degree, but would not need to have a degree in order to conduct these choirs. I do have some experience and great classroom management techniques as well in order to be successful at managing large groups of elementary through high school age singers in a choral context. So depending on your background knowledge and experience, that may be more important than the degree itself in being able to do the work successfully.
What time of day and type of students are you wanting to teach? If you want to teach private lessons and do that full-time, you will likely need to have evening and weekend availability, something that I myself did not want for my family and work rhythms. I only teach a handful of private lessons for this reason, and currently most of my private students are homeschooled so that they are available during the daytime hours for their lessons.
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Hopefully considering a few of these factors helps in answering the question, "Can I teach music without a degree?" for you. If this was valuable and you'd like more guidance in considering these options as you want to start a music business, I offer coaching for those wanting to begin in either a part-time or full-time capacity (my own business is part-time hours but the income is full-time level due to how I've structured it). And we have a support group with resources for those interested which you can find here too!
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