If you teach piano in Alberta or Manitoba, we’d like you on the site. This page covers what a listing includes, what we ask of you, and how to apply. The whole process is free — there’s no listing fee, no per-inquiry charge, no commission on lessons you book.
What a listing includes
Every published listing gets the same core surfaces:
- A dedicated page at
/piano-teachers/your-name/— your own URL on the site, indexed by Google, linkable from your own promotional materials. - Photo, bio, contact information, and studio details — the ordinary listing surfaces a parent expects.
- Credential chips — structured labels for your ARMTA or MRMTA membership, RCM grades and diplomas, degrees, and other teaching credentials. These power dedicated filter pages (e.g. teachers with ARCT, teachers with ARMTA membership) that parents can browse directly.
- The “Verified by Palliser” badge, once your listing is approved — see how we vet teachers for what earns it.
- Reviews from your own students, with five sub-ratings (Teaching Quality, Reliability, Communication, Student Progress, Value) plus a written comment. See our review policy for the moderation rules.
- Inbound student inquiries — parents contact you through a form on your listing that emails you directly. We don’t intermediate the conversation, we don’t take a cut of the lesson fee, we don’t sell your contact information to anyone.
- City and format filter pages — your listing appears on the search results for your city (e.g. Calgary, Winnipeg, Edmonton) and each format you teach (in-home, studio, online), automatically.
What we ask of you
Four things:
- Honest credentials. Only claim credentials you actually hold. We verify each one before publishing — see how we vet teachers.
- A recent photograph of yourself. Real, current, and identifiably you. Parents need to see who’s teaching their kid.
- A short conversation with Linda before your listing goes live. Usually 15 minutes by phone or video. This is a hard requirement — it’s the last check we run before publishing, and it filters out anyone who isn’t actually who they say they are.
- A working reply channel. Whatever email address or phone number you list has to reach you. When a parent inquires, you’re the one who responds.
What’s it going to cost
At launch, listings are free for every teacher. We aren’t running a tiered pricing model yet, and we haven’t decided when we will. When we do introduce paid tiers, it will be for optional enhancements (featured placement, richer profiles, that kind of thing) rather than as a paywall on the base listing.
A few things are and always will be free: the base listing itself, the “Verified by Palliser” badge, review moderation, and inbound student inquiries. Those are the point of the site.
A few things are and always will be off the table: paid removal of reviews, paid star ratings, and paid placement in editorial content or city guides. See the review policy for the full list.
How to apply
The application form takes about 10 minutes to fill out. You’ll upload:
- Your headshot (a JPEG or PNG, roughly square, at least 400 × 400 pixels).
- Any credential documents you’d like us to verify — a copy of your ARMTA/MRMTA membership card, an RCM certificate, a degree parchment, or similar. If a credential is easy to check publicly (e.g. we can confirm your ARMTA membership on the ARMTA site), you don’t need to send a document for it.
- A short bio (about 150-300 words) written in your own voice. Tell parents who you are and how you teach.
Once submitted, Linda will reach out within a few days to schedule the pre-launch conversation. From application to published listing is typically a week or two, depending on how quickly we can reach you and how many applications are ahead of yours.
What we’re building toward
Palliser Music is a directory, not a lesson marketplace. We aren’t planning to add in-platform messaging, lesson payment processing, or scheduling tools — those are things you already have working arrangements for, and the site would be worse if it tried to intermediate them.
What we do plan to add, over the first year: an interactive map on the search page, tiered listing options for teachers who want richer profiles or featured placement, and better editorial content for the cities and topics parents are searching. All of it stays optional for the base listing.
Questions
Email hello@palliser.music. Linda handles teacher applications directly; Spencer handles the technical questions. Whichever of us you reach will loop the other in if they’re the better person to answer.
Related reading: How we vet teachers · Review policy · About Palliser Music