Creative music making, including composition and improvisation, is formally mandated in Japan’s lower-secondary music curriculum as part of the “expression” domain, alongside singing and instrumental performance. While this policy aims to encourage students to explore and express their own musical ideas, creative activities remain uncommon in actual classroom practice. Many teachers describe composition tasks as time-consuming, difficult to assess, and challenging to manage within limited lesson hours. This study examined how frequently such creative tasks were taught, how enjoyable they were perceived to be, and how students’ musical abilities related to their enjoyment of different music activities.A total of 571 first-year university students who had completed Japanese lower-secondary education participated in an online survey. Respondents retrospectively evaluated seven typical classroom activities: solo singing, choral singing, solo instrumental, ensemble instrumental, solo composition, group composition, and listening or appreciation. For each activity, students indicated whether it was taught and, if so, rated their enjoyment on a six-point scale ranging from “not enjoyable at all” to “very enjoyable.” The survey also included items assessing musical engagement, training, perception, singing skills, and emotional connection to music, providing a multidimensional measure of individual musical sophistication. In addition, three questions were used to capture family-related cultural background, such as reading habits, classical music exposure, and visits to art or museum settings.The results revealed that creative tasks were rarely implemented: approximately 78 percent of participants reported that both solo and group composition were never taught during their lower-secondary schooling. When such tasks were experienced, solo composition was generally perceived as unenjoyable, whereas group composition was rated more positively. Enjoyment of music activities was most strongly associated with students’ perceptual sensitivity and confidence in singing, suggesting that these abilities contribute to positive engagement in school music. Family cultural factors showed only weak or inconsistent relationships with enjoyment.These findings indicate that creative music making remains marginalized in Japanese secondary education despite its curricular importance. From an educational perspective, creativity may need to be reimagined as a collaborative and scaffolded process. Integrating creative prompts into existing singing or listening units and emphasizing formative, process-based assessment could help make creative expression a more inclusive and sustainable part of music learning for all students.