Excellent thread, Jerry. Nice to see one of those around here.

Yes, we always try to leave a bit of air betweeen the instruments. And work some dynamics into the songs. That includes some effective silence or near-silence. Just because you're standing there with your instrument doesn't mean you have to play ALL the way through the tune.

I'm also a visual artist and I know the effect of space in a work; I often think of music in a "visual" way... that doesn't mean a video or in how it looks to observers; it's a way of visualizing what I hear to "see" it in a new way. It goes the other way too.