For one New Delhi fifth grader shy of singing, a white, plastic recorder gifted by Japan’s Yamaha Corp. has been a potentially career-defining revelation.

“I feel I’m better at playing the recorder and may even teach it to others when I grow up,” said Palak Ramania, speaking during a break in a music class for her and more than 40 of her schoolmates in east Delhi.

Her school is one of 10 in the capital taking part in a pilot project to promote musical education developed by Yamaha together with the Delhi Board of School Education (DBSE). Both the recorders and music books used by the class are provided to Palak’s school by Yamaha Music India.

As a 10-year-old, Palak’s ambitions in life may change. But for 140-year-old Yamaha, the world’s biggest musical equipment maker, the aim of providing free instruments to Indian children taking school musical instrument lessons for the first time are crystal clear: Developing emerging markets in Asia is one way to counter plummeting instrument sales in aging Japan.

Yamaha’s revenue from instrument sales in Japan, still its second-biggest market after North America, has plummeted 50% in 10 years, dropping to 57.4 billion yen ($388 million) in the year ended March 2023. That has encouraged the company to work on similar school projects in Malaysia, Indonesia and Vietnam, as well as Brazil, the United Arab Emirates and Egypt.

In Malaysia, the company helped local public schools launch pilot classes using a keyboard last year, with a view to formally introducing the lessons to the national curriculum revision scheduled for 2027.

“We hope to be more successful in the emerging Asian market,” said Kazuki Watanabe, an official working on Yamaha’s ‘School Project,’ told Nikkei Asia.

For Watanabe, sparking more children’s interest in playing an instrument through school education translates to more musicians, professional or otherwise, thereby lifting demand for instruments.

Founded as an organ manufacturer by engineer Torakusu Yamaha in 1887, Yamaha split off its motorcycle division to establish Yamaha Motor in 1955. The musical instrument maker has grown into a global force, with a market value of about $4.5 billion, producing and selling a wide variety of instruments including pianos, keyboards, guitars, drums, woodwinds and stringed instruments, as well as audio equipment.

While the company’s total sales have crept higher over the last five fiscal years to 451.4 billion yen for the 12 months ended March 2023, helped by robust demand in North America, its operating profit margins have dropped along with its net profit. China has become another key market for Yamaha, driven by high sales of pianos, but analysts expect growth in China to slow in the near future.

“Considering the examples in countries such as China, when a country’s GDP (gross domestic product) per capita exceeds $5,000, the growth of the country’s musical instrument market tends to accelerate,” said Kenichi Saita, a senior analyst at Mizuho Securities. “In India, it is still about $2,000, but the economy is growing rapidly. It may take longer than China, but it is a market with growth potential.”

Under the School Project, which has been endorsed by Japan’s education ministry, Yamaha trains local instructors who, in turn, train schoolteachers to impart lessons to children using musical instruments.

While musical education is barely part of the curriculum at state schools in India and some other Asian countries, the opposite is true in Japan. Japanese children are exposed to a variety of instruments, typically including the recorder and the melodica, from elementary through junior high school.

“In the beginning, it was a bit challenging to teach the kids, as instrumental music was new to them. But they soon started taking interest and now play with a lot of coordination,” said the teacher at Palak’s school, who was not permitted by school authorities to be identified by name.

“With Japanese-style music education, kids will be able to develop social skills, including cooperative skills,” said Yamaha School Project official Watanabe.

According to the DBSE in India, the idea behind the project is to give students the chance to develop their skills in performing and visual arts, an area often overlooked in a system that encourages students to focus on scoring well on academic tests.

Yamaha has particularly high hopes for India, whose more than 1.4 billion people now make it the world’s most populous nation, ahead of China.

“As the economy grows and people become better off financially, more people have had access to instruments,” said Ryoji Maruyama, head of Yamaha Music India’s sales unit based in Gurgaon, near the capital.

Yamaha’s Indian business is forecast to achieve double-digit revenue growth for the third consecutive year this fiscal year, helped by record sales of keyboards and guitars, Yamaha said. The company does not disclose details of its musical instrument revenue in individual markets in South Asia and Southeast Asia.

The company opened a factory in Chennai, in southern India, in 2019 to serve the domestic market. Its India-specific keyboards have tones and preset rhythm patterns suitable for Indian pop music.

“India has diverse ethnic groups and cultures. We listen to the needs of local people and utilize [their feedback] in product development,” Maruyama said.

While Yamaha sees the Indian market as “the next China,” Maruyama said: “The market in India is unlikely to develop in the same way as China, as their cultures are different.”

Offering its own private education, separate from public school systems, is an effective marketing strategy for Yamaha, according to Mizuho Securities analyst Saita.

For many years Yamaha has run music schools in Japan and China, two big markets for pianos. Now it is beefing up its music school business in Southeast Asia, including Indonesia, where it has five instrument factories.

“Yamaha’s music schools have helped increase its brand recognition, contributing to high sales of pianos,” said Saita. “The School Project is expected to fulfill a similar advertising role.”

Back in Delhi, the pilot project is scheduled to end this year, but both Yamaha and the DBSE are looking to extend it.

A DBSE official said, “This exposure may also help some of these kids to take up instrumental music in [advanced classes] and then as a hobby or career, if they have an interest or inclination.”

For now, that path continues to beckon to fifth grader Palak. “I want to keep learning and improving myself,” she said.