Tempo Changes in Songs - My Formula (Patreon)

Whenever there is a tempo change in one of my songs, it always maintains a relational aspect through metric modulation. For instance, the most straightforward metric modulation is the transition from half time to double tempo, or vice versa. However, looking into that topic a little more there are a lot of things to discover by altering the note rate. For example, if we play 16th notes at 120 bpm but accent every fifth beat, we essentially play quintuplets at 96 bpm. Transitioning seamlessly from these quintuplets to regular 16th notes at 96 bpm establishes the new tempo.

Metric modulations can really fast, even within the last two beats of a fill, leading into the new tempo. I typically use the following calculation method:

note grid x current tempo / new note grid = new tempo

In our example, with 16th notes at 120 bpm, multiplying 120 by 4 (4 notes per beat) and then dividing by 5 (since we accent every fifth beat) gives us the new tempo. This method effectively slows down a section in a song.

This approach is applicable to various scenarios, such as starting with triplets and accenting every 4th note, resulting in a new tempo of 3x120/4 = 90bpm.

There are a lot of possibilities, doing both, slowing down and speeding up the song.

Have you ever worked on making a metric modulation as smooth as possible? I feel like that’s the biggest challenge during the songwriting process.