This paper provides a discussion of selected results of a pilot study founding a tempo project. This project potentially determines the phonetic locations for altering the speech rate for English synthetic speech in order to replicate a proposed natural pattern of tempo modulations based upon phrasal foci. A male educated speaker read Canadian English sentences at 3 speech rates and with varied focal points plus 1 neutral control, which were recorded and then digitized using Multispeech, Model 3700, version 2.2 by Kay Elemetrics Corp. By comparing the durations of the averaged syllables of the focused sentences to those of the control, the proposed tempo pattern is confirmed. The results of the pilot study are promising and warrant further examination in order to provide a model of speech rate that can be incorporated into synthetic speech creating a more natural product.