Apply to teach with us.

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We serve the north side of Chicago and the northern suburbs: from Evanston north to Lake Forest, and as far west as Glenview, Northbrook, and Deerfield. We ask because all teaching is in-home, and commute patterns matter significantly for scheduling.
Instruments you can teach (check all that apply):*
Do you have a personal vehicle?*
All teaching is done in clients’ homes. Teachers travel house-to-house, often covering a wide geographic range. A personal vehicle is required.
Do you have experience teaching piano?*
Do you live within 45 minutes of Wilmette?*
Are you comfortable sight-reading piano at an early-intermediate level? (Faber Level 3)*
Are you comfortable with a slow build-up of your teaching schedule over a few months, or do you need a full roster in your first few weeks?*
Our prime lesson hours are Monday-Thursday, 3-9pm; availability during these windows is strongly preferred. Please list all days and times you’re available, including any weekend availability.
3-5 sentences is plenty.
This is required. Applications without a video will not be reviewed. Please record a short video, 5 minutes or less, and share it via a public Google Drive link or an unlisted YouTube link. In your video: introduce yourself, tell us what you love about teaching, and tell us about some music you really love right now. We’re not looking for production quality. We’re looking for you.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why work for Piano Power? Unlike other lesson providers, we are a teacher-centric, local, Chicago-based business. In other words, we focus on a satisfying work experience for our teachers — great student matches, professional development, efficient routes, full schedules, and an engaged artistic community. Furthermore, our professional admin team keeps everything — logistics, payment, scheduling, and marketing — running smoothly.

Our introductory rate is $40-$44 per teaching hour, based on experience. We provide generous annual raises for great performance, substantial bonuses for reliability, full compensation for your driving time, and comprehensive health insurance for qualifying teachers.

We provide full health benefits for teachers who teach four or more days per week.

Lessons are in our clients’ homes, and our teachers commute from house to house.

We compensate our teachers for all in-between-lesson time at City of Chicago minimum wage, currently $15.80/hr.

Our clients primarily live in the North Shore (e.g., Deerfield, Evanston, Glencoe, Highland Park, Lake Forest, Northbrook, Wilmette, Winnetka). We have a smaller number of students on the north side of Chicago (e.g., Andersonville, Avondale, Bucktown, Gold Coast, Lakeview, Lincoln Park, Lincoln Square, Logan Square, North Center, Ravenswood, Rogers Park, Roscoe Village, Uptown, Wicker Park).

You set your own schedule. Our teachers generally teach three to five days per week. Reliable teachers maintaining a four-day (or more) weekly schedule are eligible for substantial bonuses.

We maintain an annual limit of two cancellations during the school year and three during summer to make sure you have consistent families on your schedule. Once a client reaches that limit, you’re fully compensated for all future cancellations.

We look for musicians who can sight-read, develop an original composition with a student, and arrange a pop song by ear. We evaluate these skills during the interview.

But more importantly, we’re looking for empathy, good listening, and the ability to discover what motivates your students. We highly value interpersonal skills and emotional intelligence.

Also, the power of patience, positivity, and a sense of humor can’t be denied. We appreciate humor especially when it reflects an aptitude for honest self-assessment. Evidence of humility and an honest desire to improve your craft can also go a long way.

These qualities don’t always correlate with being a conservatory-trained musician, but they do correlate with being an effective music teacher.
Read the priceless quality I look for in a music teacher.

We’re very invested in helping you be the best teacher you can be. Once hired, you’ll be paired with a Lead Teacher — a veteran mentor who’s always a text away. Your Lead Teacher is also available to observe one of your lessons upon request. Having a dedicated mentor is a huge factor in making your Piano Power teaching experience happy and meaningful.

On a more formal level, we’re looking for teachers who can retain students, maintain at least a 90% attendance rate, respond promptly via phone/email/text, encourage recital participation from their students, and inspire great feedback from their students’ families.

You receive a $300 bonus!

We nurture a feeling of teacher community, which is especially important when we work remotely. That’s why we have parties for teachers twice a year (our last one was at Sleeping Village), informal “Idea Potlucks” for teacher enrichment, weekly “office hours” via Zoom, a Telegram group chat, and field trips to teacher performances around the city! We love that so many of our teachers are working musicians, and we love seeing them in action!

Question not answered here? Contact us.