Few Questions, Fewer Answers

My recent tendency towards playing what would be considered by most to be avant-garde or experimental music has had terrible repercussions when it comes to sitting down with an acoustic guitar. Today the house is quiet, and I have been relaxing on the living room floor strumming and toying around with little riffs or chord pairings that I’ve been tinkering with for the past month or two. For the most part, I’ve scrapped the alternate tunings I was using during my last productive songwriting phase. With the exception of tuning down one full step, I’ve never really liked anything that was derived while playing in open-G, or all fifths tuning. I started thinking maybe it was the inherent kitsch-factor convincing me something was cooler than it was in reality.

The point is, I wonder how many artists or writers struggle with the decision to intentionally incorporate something “different”. Would doing so be dishonest? Is there a middle ground? Does doing what is most natural all the time impede potential growth? Is it wrong to think there is a prevalence of folks who are focused solely on being as “different” as possible? My head hurts.