AlbertaPiano.com is the Alberta side of Palliser Music, a piano-teacher directory covering Alberta and Manitoba. This page is the short version of who we are, why the site exists, and how the two provincial sites fit together.
Who we are
The site is run as a joint venture between two people who each bring one half of what a directory like this actually needs.
Linda runs Palliser Music, a Manitoba-based piano and music-services business. Linda has spent years in the piano community — teaching, examining, playing recitals, and knowing the people who teach the people who teach. She handles the human side of the site: verifying teachers, moderating reviews, running the outreach that brings good teachers into the directory in the first place.
Spencer runs Digified Media, an Alberta-based technology company that builds and operates websites for niche communities. Spencer built the software the site runs on, handles the day-to-day mechanics of keeping it online, and takes the lead on the Alberta-side operations. AlbertaPiano.com’s domain is in Spencer’s name.
Together the JV owns both sites. The domains stay in the respective owner’s name (Alberta with Spencer, Manitoba with Linda) even if the partnership ever ends — a decision baked into the JV agreement from day one.
Why the site exists
Alberta has a lot of piano teachers. Some are ARMTA-registered career professionals with decades of examining and adjudication behind them; others are university performance majors teaching part-time; others are hobbyists teaching a handful of neighbourhood kids. Finding one that matches your kid, your budget, and your neighbourhood is genuinely hard — the ARMTA member directory is a starting point but only lists ARMTA members, and the general search results are dominated by aggregator sites that don’t verify anyone at all.
AlbertaPiano.com is meant to sit between those two — broader than the ARMTA roster (we welcome teachers who are excellent without being association members) and more careful than the aggregators (every listing is vetted by Linda before it goes live). See how we vet teachers for what that means specifically.
How the two provincial sites fit together
AlbertaPiano.com and ManitobaPiano.com are separate sites but the same operation. If a teacher lives in Lethbridge and teaches primarily Alberta students, they’re listed on AlbertaPiano.com. If they live in Winnipeg they’re on ManitobaPiano.com. A teacher who teaches online across both provinces can appear on both sites from a single application — we handle the cross-listing on our side.
The reason for two sites instead of one national one: the parent searching for a piano teacher searches “piano lessons calgary” or “piano teacher lethbridge”, not “piano teacher canada”. Provincial-scale sites are the level real search behaviour happens at. Both sites share the same review policy, the same vetting standard, and the same underlying database.
What the site is (and isn’t) built to do
The site is a directory — a place to find a teacher, read reviews from real families, verify credentials, and contact the teacher directly.
The site doesn’t handle lesson bookings, payments, or scheduling — those stay between you and the teacher, on whatever tools they already use. It doesn’t take a cut of your lesson fees. It doesn’t sell your inquiry to a lead-gen network. The teacher gets your message directly, in a form that says whatever you wrote plus your contact details.
See terms of use for the longer version, and privacy policy for what happens to the data you enter on the site.
How you can help
Three things, in decreasing order of impact:
- If you’re a piano teacher in Alberta, apply for a listing. The site is only as useful as the roster of teachers on it. Details for teachers.
- If you’ve taken lessons from a teacher listed here, leave a review. Real reviews from real families are the thing parents most need and the thing that’s hardest to seed. See the review policy for the rules.
- If something on the site is broken or wrong, tell us. A credential you know is inaccurate, a review that reads fake, a listing whose contact info is stale — email hello@palliser.music and we’ll look into it.
Contact
The best way to reach us is hello@palliser.music. Linda handles teacher applications and review moderation; Spencer handles anything technical (broken pages, listing issues, feature requests). Whichever of us you reach will loop the other in if they’re the right person to answer.
Related reading: How we vet teachers · For teachers · Review policy