Discovering Your Niche in Music
Are you looking to find your niche in music? Here's some handy tips for finding your sound.

Whenever someone asks me what kind of music I enjoy, I struggle to answer. If you explore my Spotify, you’ll find different artists and genres in there. According to my Spotify Wrapped for 2023, I listened to over 2,000 artists cutting across different genres. So you can’t really say what kind of music I enjoy the most. As a fan, that’s completely acceptable. As an artist, not so much.

It’s well within your rights to explore as much as possible with your music, but you don’t want to be all over the place. You have to find your corner of the music industry, your niche, and try to dominate it as much as possible. I know you’re keen to make different kinds of music, but niching down is the best way. I’ll explain why…

Why Finding Your Niche Is Important

Focus

Niching down helps you to focus better on what kind of music to make. In a world full of many interesting things, it’s way too easy to get distracted. A niche helps you to find focus so that your music career follows a certain path. What’s your type of sound? What kind of lyrics will you be known for? Niching down answers all these questions.

Without a niche, you’ll likely end up trying so many different things without making progress in any of them. Chasing the wind won’t take you anywhere, it’s much better to niche down and focus on one thing.

"The best way to find your sound as an artist is to create as much music as possible. It’s likely that most of it won’t ever be released, but the very act of practicing creating music will help you sharpen your skills, refine your taste, and broaden your experience." How to Find Your Sound as an Artist - Blog | Splice, 2023-07-07

Set apart

The music industry is saturated, and more people keep coming every day. To make any real headway in your career, you need two things. Firstly, you need to be consistent. Secondly, you need to be different. There has to be something about you that makes listeners fall in love with you. One of the ways to do that is to find a niche. Be known for something. It drastically reduces the competition as well.

How many artists are there in the world? Let’s say a free million. How many punk rock artists are there? Definitely less than the total number of artists. So by putting yourself in one genre, you’ve automatically cut your competition.

Deaf ears

Until you find your target audience, your music will continue to fall on deaf ears. No matter how awesome your music is, no one will appreciate it until it gets to the right crowd. Finding your niche also helps you identify your audience. Who are the lovers of your kind of music? They are your potential fans.

One time, I stumbled on an Instagram reel of an indie artist. I loved what I heard so I ran to Spotify to find more. Instead, I found a completely berserk catalog of songs. The one song I found was the only one I enjoyed. Think about that. Would you rather have one fan who loves all your music or ten fans who enjoy one song each? Who is more likely to pay to see you perform?

How to Find Your Niche

What is your extra touch?

When trying to find your niche, one thing to consider is what sets you apart from others. What is your extra touch? This question comes after you’ve decided on your genre. Your niche needs to be ultra-specific but also fluid enough for you to easily adapt. Finding your niche therefore goes beyond picking a genre.

Carve out a place for yourself by bringing your extra touch to the fore. For example, in a world full of hip-hop artists, NF set himself apart with his lyricism and cinematic music. Imagine hearing violins and background choirs in a hip-hop song. Imagine a rap song with absolutely zero cuss words in it. Imagine confronting mental health issues in music. That is NF’s niche.

Who is your audience?

Who do you want to make music for? Instead of hollering out randomly and hoping someone will like it, identify your target audience. Do you want to make music that can be played in the club or music that will make people cry? Is your music for people in love or people struggling with depression?

When you can answer these questions, you already have a good idea what your niche is. Know your audience.

What do you love doing?

In music, love must be your first reason. If you don’t love what you do, you might fall off along the way. So what kind of music do you enjoy making? What tickles your creative fancy? What are you passionate about? Going back to our NF example, he’s clearly passionate about mental health because he has struggled with it himself. You can feel it in his music.

That passion is a big part of what will fuel you to keep at it. It’s part of what will stand out to your audience as they relate to you.

What are you good at?

People often confuse these two, but they’re not always the same. What you love isn’t always what you’re good at. When they intersect, it’s beautiful. If not, you have some decisions to make. Passion is important, but so is competence. Find a way to intersect what you love and what you’re good at because they’re two of the three fundamental things you need for success.

What is marketable?

If you plan to make a career out of music, you must find a way to make money from it. What does your audience enjoy? What will they come out to hear to sing? As much as you must not be a people pleaser, the opinions of your fans matter too. Without them, there’s no career. You must find a way to balance all three points on the triangle of success.

Find what you love, but make sure you’re good at it. Finally, be sure you can make money from it. When you find the intersection, that’s your golden ticket.

In Closing…

Finding your niche is one of the most important parts of your career. When you start, you’re full of dreams and ideas. There’s a plethora of things you can do. As you grow, you will have to streamline your music as you find your niche. Remember that experimentation is still allowed, in fact, it’s essential. But belong somewhere. Don’t just hang around and go wherever the wind blows.

Cheers to niching down.