Anatomy of a techno track: tempo, bars and phrases

BPM means tempo

BPM is beats per minute. Most techno sits between 125 and 140 BPM. Dub and hypnotic styles can be slower, around 120. House usually plays around 120–128. Hard techno and schranz start at roughly 145 and today often go past 150. Tempo is not just speed. It changes the character of the music: at 125 BPM the groove sways, at 150 it charges.

Four to the floor

The foundation is 4/4 time with a kick on every quarter note, known as four-to-the-floor. Between the kicks the hi-hats play, most often on the offbeat. In our Studio one row of 16 steps is exactly one bar: kick on steps 1, 5, 9 and 13, open hi-hat on 3, 7, 11 and 15. Try it and you will hear the classic techno pattern.

Thinking in phrases

Techno is built in blocks of 8, 16 or 32 bars. Every block something changes: a new sound comes in, something drops out, a filter opens. Listeners don't count bars, but their bodies feel them and expect the change. At 128 BPM, 32 bars last exactly one minute, so a seven-minute track has room for several such chapters.

Intro, breakdown, return

A typical track starts with rhythm only, often for 32 bars. That is the intro for the DJ, who needs time to line up two records. Then the bass and the main motif arrive. Halfway through comes the breakdown: the kick goes quiet, tension builds, and the kick's return releases a burst of energy on the dancefloor. At the end the track strips down again so the DJ can bring in the next one. Listen to "Positive Education" by the Scottish duo Slam or Joris Voorn's "Incident" and try to predict when the change will come.

Why DJs care

A DJ matches the tempo of two tracks and blends them so the phrases line up: the new track starts at the beginning of a new phrase in the old one. When it works, the transition is seamless and the changes in both tracks add up to one story. When it doesn't, the dancefloor hears it immediately. Mixing itself gets its own lesson.