Research suggests that when we treat our non-obligatory activities playfully, we are more likely to engage with them and derive meaningfulness from them. Play is of interest to the field of music education on at least two counts: the perceived relationship between play and music, and the perceived educational aspects of play related to human development and behavior. Using Johan Huizinga's definition of play in Homo Ludens as a starting point, I interrogate the ways in which school music may militate against play efforts in music education. I draw particular attention to the problem of group-based musical performance, competition, and how school music in many jurisdictions has capitulated to an impoverished paradigm of "getting it right." I conclude with a brief appeal to re-center play as critically important to the aims of school music.