Don Bosco Institute director Father Johnson Parackal inaugurates the music school on Sunday. Picture by UB Photos

Guwahati, Jan. 19: Yamaha Music India today opened Music Mates in Guwahati, its first music school in the Northeast and 12th in the country.

The schoolhas structured curricula designed for imparting keyboard and guitar lessons.

“We have tied up with Ace School of Music, which is our authorised dealer in the Northeast along with another one at Dimapur. Yamaha Music Mates courses are aimed at helping students explore a wide range of music fundamentals. The curricula have been designed to suit learners of all ages,” said Bhuvnesh Chauhan, marketing manager (North India).

Music Mates offers courses in electronic keyboard and acoustic guitar. The school in Guwahati has trained instructors in Narendra Rai, who has had a stint in DD School of Rock, Pune, and Meneu Solo, who specialises in electric keyboards and piano.

“The course duration will be of two years and one class will be held every week. We have increased the number of classrooms from one to three and created infrastructure based on Yamaha norms. We have facilities for imparting lessons to a group of students as against individual tutorials earlier,” said Devasis Barkataki, director of Ace School of Music, which was set up three years back.

Yamaha Music India, with over 60 per cent market share in music instruments in the country and schools in places like New Delhi, Bangalore, Chennai, Ahmedabad, Raipur and Jaipur, considers the Northeast an important destination.

“We have explored our avenues in the Northeast, which loves its music. As a matter of fact, the authorised dealers (called Yamaha Music Squares) and the multi-brand outlets are doing well out here,” Chauhan said.

Yamaha started opening music schools since 2011. “We import instruments from countries like Indonesia, China and Japan. After we set up a corporate office in New Delhi in 2006, we could streamline our marketing better through our dealers and direct sales (B2C) teams,” he said.

Yamaha Music is looking to expand in the region. “We are looking for avenues in Manipur and Arunachal Pradesh. However, we are yet to explore Shillong for security reasons,” Chauhan said.