I believe that Irish instrumental music is for the purpose of accompanying dancers for the most part. The idea of Irish instrumental music as solo virtuoso pieces for musicians is relatively new and became popular recently.

Slow aires however may have a different evolution.

To me, to divorce Irish instrumental music from the set-dances and step-dancing seems futile.

I think the same can be said for Appalachian string-band music as well.

There are examples of dance music in the "classical" music field that are not intended for actual dancing. It's a kind of genre music though and usually has little relationship to any particular folk culture.

As many of the Irish dances are fairly high energy and up-tempo, it would seem reasonable that the music would reflect this and the tempos should be faster.

The music around Dublin seems to be faster in that in reflects a kind of virtuosity that has grown up in a more sophisticated city.

There are those from the CCE and Scoil Eigse (bad spelling on my part?) who could comment on this more conclusively. The Sligo fiddlers seem to play at a pretty good clip. The Morrison, Killoran and Coleman virtuosity has set a high bench mark for this kind of playing.

Frank

Frank