Distinctive features of music education in Britain are analysed. There is a tradition of being non-explicit, preferring the intuitive to the specified. In the best and worst senses, we are a nation of amateurs: making music because it seems worthwhile; our youth and adult music-making traditions are witness to this. We are also aesthetically ambitious and worry about the mechanisation of the curriculum and losing a sense of delight and spontaneity. All of these may seem threatened by the National Curriculum. Yet it is important to be more consistent and organised in the music curriculum. There will still be scope for the unplanned, the unpredictable. There always is.