This paper reinterprets school music curricula in Japan and China through John Dewey’s democratic education to foreground two neglected dimensions: publicness (shared problems, dialogue, participation) and morality (ethical growth through experience and reflective action). Although elementary and lower secondary curricula are framed as neutral and apolitical, curriculum is inherently political in what it values and to whom it gives voice. Using a comparative policy analysis of Japan’s Course of Study: Music (2016) and China’s Compulsory Education Music Curriculum Standards (2022), alongside representative textbooks, we code for: (a) references to civic aims and student agency; (b) opportunities for dialogic/participatory practice; and (c) assessment patterns privileging standardization over collaborative inquiry. Findings show both systems prioritize aesthetic appreciation and performance skills while offering limited scaffolding for public discussion, shared rule-making, or ethical reflection within musical practice. China locates music within daode jiaoyu (moral education), but “morality” functions largely as ideological inculcation rather than Deweyan growth through inquiry. Japan emphasizes jōsō kyōiku (aesthetic sentiment), intercultural understanding, and personal development, yet typically avoids explicit engagement with public issues. Nevertheless, latent Deweyan openings already exist: collaborative performance as shared action, reflective listening as ethical deliberation, and diverse repertoires as encounters with plural publics. Framed through publicness and morality, these affordances support low-cost redesigns—student-led criteria and journals, dialogue-rich ensemble tasks, and community-facing performances—without requiring new policy mandates. As Dewey contends, democracy is realized through education via freer group interaction, the release of individual capacities, and concern for social relations; on this basis, music education can be reimagined as a practical site for reconstructing democratic life in East Asian classrooms.