Mick, Are you teasing?.

Sometimes a piece of music can also be called a "dance" like the third movement of a symphony, which in haydn and mozarts day was a dance (menuet) - yet you would never find people dancing to it - unless they were inspired by the music enough to choreograph something specifically - which I would add I have never known.

I presume when people are talking of dancers leading musicians they are talking about solo dancers.

Because in the absence of a common pulse (provided by musicians) the dancers are soon going to fall out of step with each other - so which dancer would the musicians follow ... and if there is a group of musicians do they each follow whichever musician catches their eye? or do they agree on a particular dancer beforehand? and what if it is a social occasion and everyone is dancing for fun?

The band leader is in charge of the rhythm and tempo or the above incomplete and chaotic scanario would result in a mess.

He may consult with the dancers to establish a preferred tempo beforehand, but for the musicians to follow them as they danced would be a mistake they would only ever make once.

Whether music should be played orlistened to fast or slow is a matter of taste.

Whether music is played rhythmically coherently and confidently is a matter of professionalism.

When someone with reat time plays, you can almost feel the pulse behind the music even when you can't hear it. It is so strong in the mind of the performer that it infects the audience with a sense of drive and momentum.

The question isn't whether music is better faster or slower, but whether musicians are good enough for the music to sound good at fast speeds or whether it just sounds like a mush of hasty poor quality notes skating roughly over a hoped for tempo.

The thing thats great about John McLaughlin isn't that he can play 16 notes a second but that he can do it so that it sounds great - ie, it scans /fits across the bar and finishes accurately and in time with the accompaniment.

And the tone quality doesn't suffer.