This article presents the author's response to the six authors in the special issue of "Action, Criticism and Theory for Music Education" concerning her book "Music, Informal Learning and the School: A New Classroom Pedagogy." In this response, the author focuses on some general observations that came to mind whilst reading the valuable set of articles. Many of the contexts outlined by the authors are very different from the context in which the research discussed in the book took place. Between them, they cover a range of teaching and learning practices related to Balinese gamelan, Irish traditional music, jazz, rock, various African contexts, the digital musical culture of information technology, teacher-education, and other areas. The authors have identified aspects of informal music-learning practices that can translate across these different contexts, and each author has made constructive connections between the work discussed in the book, and the work that they and others are doing in related areas. At the same time as acknowledging this translation of concepts across different contexts, however, every context of course has its own specificities. The author suggests that, while teachers can usefully identify overarching concepts, they must also retain the specificities of particular contexts, and the qualities that make one practice or object different from another. In the author's opinion, the authors in the special issue have all succeeded in balancing both sides of the scale.