Finding Your Niche--Easy as Falling Down

True, there are songwriters in the industry that seem to be able to write in any style, and produce hit after hit—Diane Warren for one—but that is an exception, not the norm. Most of us tend to keep to one genre, or branch out into a similar one, but mostly just do what we do best. It’s always a good idea to figure out what you excel at, and then build on your strengths while finding out your weaknesses and shoring those up. If you are to write hit music, though, you are going to go up against other songwriters as good or better than you are, so why compete in an event that isn’t your best one? If you have a gift for riding racehorses, would you decide to suddenly become a basketball player? Becoming a ball player may be a dream of yours, but if you don’t have the height, and are actually a bit on the short side, you are probably better at riding because it’s natural for you to be. If it comes naturally, why not just do it?

What are Your Strengths?

If you have spent some time writing and pitching your songs already, you have already gained some valuable feedback from industry representatives on your tunes. What did they like? What didn’t they like? What areas did they say needed work? Are the ideas they gave you things you could easily fix, or do you need to learn some theory or musical instrument to implement that change? If your song is wonderful, and they loved it, what did they like in particular? Do you write good instrumentals? Do you write good lyrics? Do you do a good job of getting the listener to feel what is going on in the song? What have your friends said about the song? What have your critics said about your song?

After a small grilling like this, and several more like it, you should be able to get a good idea of what others feel your area of expertise is. You may not agree, thinking that that particular thing is so simple, that there is no way that you can feel that it’s something you could excel at, but, that’s they way of all great things—they should seem like the easiest thing, since, if you are an expert at it, it is easy for you, but not necessarily for others. Maybe it’s your piano playing, or writing drum tracks, but it is something you are good at—the thing that puts you apart from other songwriters. Terms you hear multiple times are a good beginning to a list of things you are extra-good at—get out some paper and jot these down. Try doing some of the things on the list, and see which is easiest for you, and that one is probably your area of expertise.

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