In this article, the author engages in a lively interactive discussion with Paul Woodford's text, "Democracy and Music Education." He questions Woodford's criticism of Praxial Music Education (PME)--particularly his dismissal of PME as a "performance alone" notion. PME, this author asserts, is fundamentally multidimensional, contextually reflexive and contingent on a range of modes of enjoying music, including the important role of listening. This essay goes on to comprehensively discuss a range of points relating to the connections and resonances between music education and democracy. In response to Woodford, the author raises issues about children's music learning, their induction into musical styles and traditions, and the ethical nature of such processes. He concedes that teachers and students need to begin to foreground the ethical, historical and other contextual aspects of music and engage in meaningful conversations about musical-social consequences. This calls for the music teacher to be "coach, advisor and informed critic" rather than simply "know it all big-brother." One of his more interesting suggestions is his insistence that music educators embrace emotion and passion as important facets of their teaching styles--as the fusion of feeling and reason is pivotal in music teaching and learning. His call to emotion in music teaching is put forward in reaction to Woodford's emphasis on "abstract reason" in "Democracy and Music Education." (Contains 5 notes.)