The present state of ITM can be summarised in three points:
- The number of players is higher than at any time in the past
- A higher standard of playing is common and widespread
- Access to the styles and repertoire of preceding generations and distant communities is available.
This is an unprecedented conjunction of factors. It has both helped to form, and derives strength from, the feeling of national self-confidence that has characterised Irish life over the past couple of decades.
The sheer presence and number of these musicians and the extent of their activity has created a revolutionary situation. A kind of critical mass has been reached and an explosion of creativity and diversification is the foreseeable and inevitable outcome. The signs of this are already visible. For the past decade at least elements of traditional music have been assimilated into mass popular music, and occasionally the performance of traditional music itself has achieved mass popularity.
A very numerous generation of new players has "come on stream". As in all groups, some will want to experiment. Given the unprecedented numbers of the current generation, experimentation will be, and is being, carried out on an unprecedented scale. Some of this creativity is strictly within the bounds of traditional music itself. A lot of it is feeding into other musics and borrowing from other musics, within Ireland and abroad.
The result of this is that the "centre" of traditional music will probably shift, as it has shifted in the past. The shift will probably be slight, because the dynamics of traditional music act as a restraint against too-rapid change. The "centre" of popular music in Ireland will also shift, to incorporate more elements of traditional music. Because popular music is driven and fuelled by novelty, and has no "agenda" to act a a brake, it will probably be large but it will not be long-lasting. Nevertheless the possibility exists for creating a genre of popular music, recognisable world-wide, which is distinctively Irish. Such a musical form could co-exist with the underlying traditional music just as, for example, "country" music co-exists with "old-timey" (the American equivalent of sean-nós) in the USA.
Traditional music itself is already undergoing a process of re-generation. New material is being created in all branches of the craft - music, song and dance - and is undergoing the customary winnowing process of assessment by the community. The generations of the next century will inherit a tradition that is vastly richer, more complex and more accessible than ever before.
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