How Yamaha Music School is using Canvas to connect classrooms around the world

Yamaha Music Schools shared how they’re using Canvas LMS to connect classrooms across countries and complement in-person lessons. By bringing lesson materials, communication, and learner insights together, Yamaha is creating a consistent experience that supports both teachers and learners around the world.

How would you describe Yamaha’s approach to music education, and how has technology become part of that over time?

Yamaha Music School abroad offers the joy of music to over 150,000 students across more than 40 countries and regions. Yamaha’s time-honoured, structured curriculum and teaching methods are core assets, cherished by people of all ages, from children to adults, around the globe.

As digitalisation advances across various fields, delivering globally unified digital value has become essential to provide Yamaha’s proven quality to customers worldwide. 

By introducing an LMS, Yamaha not only delivers new digital value to customers but also enables operational efficiency through the digitisation of tasks such as teacher lesson preparation. This enables music schools to enjoy the benefits of digitalisation across various areas.

What led you to choose Canvas for your music programs, and what stood out about the platform?

Educational institutions worldwide use Canvas, which is highly compatible with our global LMS deployment. Its global support infrastructure is another significant advantage.

Functionally, it excels as a fully cloud-based solution that eliminates the need for server management and version updates. It can be customised for Yamaha Music School operations and localised for each country’s implementation. Since most music school students and teachers use the LMS on smartphones, we anticipate further usability improvements with future smartphone UI and UX enhancements

How many teachers, students, and classes are now using Canvas, and what does expansion look like for Yamaha?

Starting this term (Q4 2025), we plan to roll out Canvas to our locations in 13 countries over the next two years.

In the future, over 100,000 students, teachers, and staff will use Canvas, initiating the delivery of digital value and aiming to create a new vision for Yamaha Music School.

What has the feedback about Canvas from instructors and parents been?

Parents and guardians appreciate that students can review lessons anytime, anywhere by accessing audio and video materials. They expect this to effectively supplement in-person lessons and improve proficiency.

While teachers initially expressed concerns and hesitation about transitioning from traditional methods to digital, they now report high satisfaction with the efficiency gains in teaching. This includes the ability to create lesson plans simply by editing content modules within Canvas, replacing previous manual preparation, and the visualisation of student progress within Canvas, which greatly aids in providing targeted instructional support.

Looking ahead, how do you see technology continuing to play a role in Yamaha’s music education programs?

We believe that the integration of technology with Yamaha Music School’s signature systematic curriculum and teaching methods creates synergistic effects. This adds digital value delivery online to the existing offline value provided in classrooms.

We anticipate the LMS will play a crucial role in achieving our mission: seamlessly integrating diverse content and services through the LMS to swiftly deliver value to more customers, enhance Yamaha’s brand value, and increase Yamaha fans worldwide.

Discover how Canvas LMS can help your institution create a more connected learning experience. Book a demo to see how it works.