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When we were a young band and had only four songs, two of them had bass solos. (What can I say? I love me up some soloing: the spontaneity, the intensity, the release.) I always felt like a champ after pulling one off, yet the crowd response was tepid. (Insert joke about bassist) I couldn't figure out why. I executed it perfectly!
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You ever meet that kid in high school on debate team? You know the one I'm talking about. He had a giant vocabulary and wasn't afraid to whip it out at the slightest provocation. This loquacious, verbose and obtuse individual filibustered colleagues with his voluminous repertoire of lexicon in perpetuum.
People thought he was smart. And a dick. With no friends.
What was his goal in hedging his language like this?
The purpose of speaking is communication. Using unnecessarily complicated language obfuscates the message. Don't put big words in sentences just because you can. Likewise, don't put solos or crazy-technical passages in your music unless they're required to convey the message of your song. It's about the music, not how fast you can sweep-pick scales in 17/8.
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Confession: I was that kid. Still recovering.
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