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Professionals · code 2354

Other music teachers

An app can teach you notes. It can't hear what's wrong with your bowing.

Updating courses and materials is the one task AI could take a fair chunk of. Showing someone how to sing or play an instrument it barely touches.

What they actually do (and what else they get called)

Other music teachers teach students in the practice, theory and performance of music outside the mainstream primary, secondary and higher education systems, but may provide private or small group tuition as an extracurricular activity in association with mainstream educational institutions. Tasks include - (a) assessing the students’ level of ability and determining needs and learning goals; (b) planning, preparing and delivering programmes of study, lessons and workshops for individual students and groups; (c) preparing and presenting material on the theory and interpretation of music; (d) instructing and demonstrating practical aspects of singing or of playing a particular instrument; (e) teaching students to read and write musical notation; (f) assigning exercises and teaching pieces of music relevant to students’ level of ability, interests and talents; (g) assessing students and offering advice, criticism and encouragement; (h) revising curricula, course content, course materials and methods of instruction; (i) preparing students for examinations, performances and assessments; (j) arranging visits and tours to musical performances; (k) organizing and assisting in auditions or performances of students’ work. Examples of the occupations classified here: - Guitar teacher (private tuition) - Piano teacher (private tuition) - Singing teacher (private tuition) - Violin teacher (private tuition) Some related occupations classified elsewhere: - University lecturer - 2310 - Vocational education teacher - 2320 - Secondary school teacher - 2330 - Primary school teacher - 2341 Notes Regular secondary and primary school teachers who teach music are classified in Unit Groups 2330: Secondary Education Teachers, and 2341: Primary School Teachers respectively.

  • music teacher

Job titles from the EU's ESCO list. Search for any of them on the jobs page and you'll end up here.

65 / 100

Mostly holds up against AI

AI can take a few chores off your plate, but most of the day is still yours.

Not the odds you keep your job. It's how much of the everyday work still needs a person, out of 100.

← Robot's turf Human's turf →

The ILO's official verdict: Minimal Exposure

280 of 427 for holding up against AI

Why this score?

The ILO rated each of this job's 11 tasks for how much of it AI could do. They average 35.4 out of 100, so it holds up at 100 − 35.4 = 64.6.

That's the whole sum. No black box, no secret sauce: you can check it against the ILO's study. ILO group “Minimal Exposure”: A few tasks are affected, but the heart of the job isn't.

This job rates 29.2 out of 100 for how hands-on it is. The score above only looks at AI tools, not robots, but for work this far from the physical that matters less.

from the source Working Paper 140, Generative AI and Jobs 2025 index data 0.8-observed-use

Man v Bot · compare

Who holds up better?

Other music teachers 65

v

Go on, try your partner's job. Or your sibling's. We won't tell.

Man v Bot

Where the bot helps, and where the human wins

Bot

What AI takes

The routine stuff. You may not miss it.

  • Course materials and theory.
  • Practice apps and feedback.
  • Exam preparation materials.

Man

What people still do better

Judgement, trust and skilled hands. Hard to download.

  • Demonstrating technique.
  • Listening and correcting.
  • Encouraging students.

Both

What's arriving

New work that only exists because the AI does.

  • Online lessons.
  • Students using AI music tools.
  • Group and community music.

Written by a human, from the ILO's task ratings below. Yes, we see the irony. Read it as one person's take.

Meet your two rivals

They're not the same machine. AI software can only reach the parts of a job done on a screen or in words. A chatbot can't climb a ladder. A robot might, one day, if it doesn't fall off.

The AI

Lives in a screen. Never had to fix a boiler.

Threat level: Medium

51 could do without you

It could take over some of the work, and help with more. It could help with 73 of 100.

The robot

The wildcard. Has hands, still working out stairs.

How much it matters here: Lower

29 how hands-on

Not much of this job needs hands, so the robot can sit this one out.

So could a robot do the physical part?

Less than half of this job is hands-on. Robots still matter, but for a smaller part of the work, so we don't sort it any further.

Robots hate fiddly work in awkward spaces. On that measure, this job scores 18 out of 100. The higher it is, the longer the robot waits.

29 How
hands-on
18 How fiddly
and cramped

Kind of hands-on work Less than half hands-on

The small print

They aren't a robot score, and nothing on this page is. Nobody measures how far robots have got well enough to put a number on it. These are the closest thing we have: how hands-on the job is, and how much fiddly, cramped work it takes, which is what Frey and Osborne found hardest for machines.

From O*NET, matched to one US job .

finger skill 26.9 · hand skill 19.7 · cramped spaces 6.3 · averaged · rule: hands-on under 50

estimated O*NET 31.0 BLS occupational crosswalk chain ISCO-08 to 2010 SOC (Aug 2012, rev. Jun 2015); 2010 to 2018 SOC (Nov 2017); O*NET-SOC 2019 taxonomy data 0.8-observed-use measures chosen by Frey & Osborne (2017) · the grouping is a sorting, not a measurement

The job, task by task

Every job is really a bundle of tasks. Here's this one unpacked, with how much of each AI could do, out of 100. The score is the average, and averages can hide a lot.

AI's favourite task here scores 56, against an average of 35. The bigger the gap, the more lopsided the job: some of it wide open to AI, some of it barely touched.

  1. 56

    Revising curricula, course content, course materials and methods of instruction

    Medium
  2. 45

    Arranging visits and tours to musical performances

    Low
  3. 41

    Preparing and presenting material on the theory and interpretation of music

    Low
  4. 35

    Teaching students to read and write musical notation

    Low
  5. 35

    Preparing students for examinations, performances and assessments

    Low
  6. 34

    Assigning exercises and teaching pieces of music relevant to students’ level of ability, interests and talents

    Low
  7. 33

    Organizing and assisting in auditions or performances of students' work.

    Low
  8. 30

    Planning, preparing and delivering programmes of study, lessons and workshops for individual students and groups

    Low
  9. 30

    Assessing students and offering advice, criticism and encouragement

    Low
  10. 27

    Assessing the students’ level of ability and determining needs and learning goals

    Low
  11. 24

    Instructing and demonstrating practical aspects of singing or of playing a particular instrument

    Very Low

11 tasks · the High to Very Low labels are the ILO's

from the source Working Paper 140, Generative AI and Jobs 2025 index data 0.8-observed-use

Sidekick or replacement?

A tool that makes you faster is a very different thing from one that does the task while you watch. Jobs and Skills Australia measured the two separately, which is handy.

AI helps you
73
AI does it for you
51

Sidekick wins, by 22 points.

How good a match is this?

One Australian job matches this one closely, so this is about as reliable as it gets here.

estimated Our Gen AI Transition (Gen AI Capacity Study) September 2025 detailed data release data 0.8-observed-use matched to Australian jobs 2492

Meanwhile, in real life…

Everything else here is about what AI could do. This is what people actually did. When they asked Claude for help with this kind of work, did they hand the whole task over, or roll their sleeves up and work through it together?

Out of every 100 conversations

53
47

worked through it together handed it over

The small print

Anthropic publishes this about its own product, and it doesn't feed into any score here. These are people who use Claude, not workers in general, so little use here doesn't mean AI can't reach the job. This job makes up 0.1% of the conversations.

These two add up to 100. The bars elsewhere on the page don't, because each is scored on its own, so we don't put them side by side.

observed use Anthropic Economic Index release 2026-06-26, period beginning 2026-05-01 data 0.8-observed-use 2026-05-01 · Anthropic, about its own product

So, should music teachers be worried?

Short answer: not much. Some of the chores will change, and good riddance.

Parts of it are changing. Revising curricula is rated Medium, and arranging visits, theory, notation, exam preparation, setting pieces, organising performances, planning and assessment are Low; demonstrating singing and playing rate Very Low. Apps help practice; teaching an instrument stays human.

Worth remembering: we score tasks, not jobs. When AI takes on a task, the job usually reshuffles around it rather than vanishing.

Where this job could lead

None of the new jobs we've written up start from here yet. Could be you're the first. See the jobs AI is creating →

How are the neighbours doing?

There are 92 jobs in the “Professionals” family, averaging 61. This one is above the family average.

Pit this against any other job →