For over 130 years since its foundation, Yamaha has stood by its brand purpose "To deliver the joy of music equally to all" and supported various music-related activities alongside its piano manufacturing business. In this project, instead of an AI that takes in a massive amount of data to come up with a standard, Yamaha developed an AI that responds to the pianists' individual disabilities and organized an unprecedented live entertainment event in which disabled pianists played with Japan’s leading orchestra and choir, adding a new dimension to "inclusion".

Context 1: While many Japanese corporations are committed to tackling the issue of DE&I, the progress is lagging behind in the world. About 60% of the Japanese public say when meeting with people with disabilities, they do so consciously. Comparing it to the situation in the US and Europe (roughly 10%), we must admit that there still is a tendency to view physical disabilities as unusual. It is, therefore, no surprise that when it comes to disabled people wanting to enjoy music, opportunities for them to play musical instruments and to play with others are still quite scarce. Considering the situation, we thought this was a challenge that Yamaha, as a leading musical instrument manufacturer, was best positioned to tackle.

Context 2: Listening to Beethoven's Ninth Symphony has become a year-end tradition in Japan, with as many as 23 concerts per day are held in December every year. Numerous orchestras and choirs play the symphony at the end of the year, wishing for people to reunite in the hope for peace. Holding a concert of the Ninth at this time of the year naturally attracted attention but it was also necessary to make it a truly unique one to stand out among many other concerts.

The joy of playing a musical instrument, and doing so with others, is beyond compare. But it is also true that it takes a huge amount of time and effort to attain that joy, and many people give it up halfway through the process. People with physical disabilities are all the more likely to do so, because however passionate they may be, they face great difficulties with playing a musical instrument on stage together with other musicians due to their physical limitations. That is why Yamaha, a leading company in musical instrument manufacturing, decided to rise to the challenge and make the joy of music equally accessible to anyone.

Music played by physically disabled people is overwhelmingly powerful, as each and every sound is created with great effort and passion. We anticipated that their music, joined by a large band of musicians, would make a thrilling and highly entertaining content that would inspire a sense of unity between the players and audience. Thanks to Yamaha's AI technology, we were able to offer disabled people a best possible opportunity, which is this "unprecedented joint performance of physically disabled musicians, an orchestra and choir".

Introducing THE JOYFUL PIANO:

Yamaha’s AI-assisted Piano is an instrument that learns from a huge amount of performance data and automatically plays the part for unmovable fingers in synchronization with the pianist’s performance. Building on it, Yamaha has now developed and installed a new AI technology that controls the strength of keyboard touch and pedal movement to compensate for the player’s physical limitations. Taking advantage of the technology, Yamaha organized a concert performance of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony that includes the well-known “Ode to Joy” in the fourth movement, featuring three pianists with different disabilities as soloists. Playing with a leading orchestra and choir in Japan, they delivered to the world an encouraging message that with passion, everyone can become a musician.

Beethoven's Ninth Symphony was arranged into a piano concerto with consideration to the specific physical limitations of the three pianists (two fingers missing on the right hand, being bed-ridden from birth, cerebral palsy). In the course of joint practices, voluntary piano lessons and online lessons that spanned nine months since March 2023 (total 360 hours), the arrangement was repeatedly edited as necessary to achieve the best balance with the orchestra and choir. The performance data was gathered from the 18 hours/month, total 162 hours of practice for the three pianists, based on which the AI technology that controls keyboard and pedal had been developed and refined through the nine-month period. The concert was held in December at Suntory Hall, one of the most prominent classical concert venues in Japan, while it was also delivered to the world through real-time streaming on YouTube and X.

The concert was covered by major Japanese TV channels as well as foreign media including AFP, and has reached 546 million people in 36 countries including post-event audience. Media and opinion leaders such as university professors praised Yamaha, saying "Yamaha has transformed AI into a moving entertainment". The pianist who played in the concert emphatically commented: "I'm even more motivated to continue playing the piano".

At the same time, this AI system has been made into an app and released to work on more than ten million pianos worldwide, successfully creating an environment that enables everyone, with or without disability, to attempt to play the piano.

Yamaha believes that making anybody able to play the piano should advance the entertainment industry. Based on this belief, our intention was to enable people with disability to experience the essence of the joy of music. The AI-Assisted Piano was not developed "to allow people enjoy playing the piano without any hardship" but "to cover what they cannot physically do by the use of technology". The pianists with disabilities were faced with suitable difficulties and challenges in the process of preparing for the concert, because we believed that the truly moving moment would come only when they transcend barriers by the power of music and play beautiful harmonies.