How Tempo Affects Chord Choice

It’s difficult to be specific about chord progressions in music, because the chords you choose will have a lot to do with the genre you are composing in. But across any and all genres, there are at least two generalizations that can be made:

1. The faster the tempo of your song, the longer you should hold on to a chord before changing.
2. The faster the tempo, the stronger (tonally speaking) the progression should be.

Let’s look at those two points in a bit more detail. The first point refers to what is called harmonic rhythm. That’s a term that refers to the frequency of chord changes. Changing chords on every beat is very quick indeed, and it’s not at all common. Some songs may feature that kind of quick chord change for short periods of time. The first two bars of the verse in James Taylor’s “Your Smiling Face” features a chord change on every beat. (E  B/D#  C#m  C#m/B  A…)

Some songs will hold onto a chord for at least two beats, but even that’s a quick harmonic rhythm. It’s far more normal to hear chords change every four or eight bars. More than any other song element, tempo is going to indicate to you when it’s time to change a chord.

There’s a good reason for this. We know that to add chords to a melody, we look at the melody note that happens on the strong beats. Most music in pop music genres is written in 4/4 time. That means that there are four beats in every bar, of which beats 1 and 3 are considered strong beats. Beats 2 and 4 are considered the weak beats of the bar.

Let’s say you’ve chosen to change chords every two beats. The note that happens on beat 1 (a strong beat) needs to fit with the chord you’ve chosen. Any notes that happen after that note until beat 3 may or may not fit with that chord, and that’s OK. When beat 3 happens, you need to choose a new chord. The melody note, the one that starts beat 3, needs to fit with that new chord. The other notes that finish the bar may or may not fit, and again, that’s OK.

What I’ve just described works nicely for slow to medium tempo songs (anywhere from 60 bpm to 120 bpm. If your song is faster than that, an certain new characteristic starts to emerge: your song can start to sound a bit frantic with chords changing every two beats.

Now, you may want that frantic sound as part of your song’s character, and then there’s nothing wrong with that. The frantic nature comes from the frequency of the chord changes. Every time you change to a new chord, it’s like pulling your listener in a new direction. When the tempo is fast, you’re pulling them in a new direction very quickly — every half-second or so.

In faster tempos, it works better to hang on to chords for at least four, or even eight or sixteen beats. Most songs will change that harmonic rhythm occasionally as it progresses, but there’s usually a norm that’s established at the beginning of a song, and then more-or-less kept throughout.

The second point, about faster songs needing stronger chord progressions, is related to the first point. As songs get fast, the musical ear is occupied with many things that happen quickly: words, backing instrumentation and rhythm all happen at a very quick pace. In these kinds of songs, listeners can feel a bit disoriented if chords change quickly, and go into tonally vague areas. In fast-tempo songs, things will feel more solid if you stick to progressions that are a bit more predictable and tonally strong.

As mentioned, much of this has to do with genre. There are some musical styles and even personal performance style that may benefit from the frantic nature of changing chords quickly. But as in all aspects of songwriting, it’s best to know the effect it’s having, and let your song’s impact be purposeful, not accidental.

_____________

Written by Gary Ewer. Follow Gary on Twitter

If you want to learn more about song structure, and how hit songwriters from the past 60 years have created their great hits, get “The Essential Secrets of Songwriting” 6-eBook Bundle. Available for immediate download.