These Wild Cross-Rhythms In Led Zeppelin's 'Black Dog'

Black Dog is the opening song on Led Zeppelin’s untitled fourth album of 1971. The song has earned a certain iconic reputation, perhaps primarily because of (1) its almost ritualistic call and response structure, (2) Robert Plant’s extraordinarily high, almost unearthly vocal solos, and (3) the magnificent yet mysterious power of its famous riff. This was originally created by the bassist, John Paul Jones, and is executed with great charisma by Jimmy Page (guitar) and Jones (bass) playing in octaves, with a suggestion of 5-beat phrasing, while John Bonham pounds out an off-beat pattern of four to a bar underneath.

MUSICAL EXCERPT USED IN THIS VIDEO

Black Dog from Led Zeppelin IV

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#Led Zeppelin #Black Dog #Music Professor

Produced and directed by Ian Coulter & Matthew King

[ThisGuyAnimates]

I find his videos the perfect type of videos to watch in the morning eating breakfast, short, well-explained, funny, and actually makes me learn something new!

[tymime]

The thing about this riff is that it comes THIS close to cramming too many notes into a bar to make sense, and yet it works

[AngelHadzi]

Page: John Paul, how many rythms do you want in the song? JPJ: Yes!

[oppenz]

As someone that can't play any instrument or even have any understanding of music, really, this song always drive me crazy everytime I heard it.

But I love it to death

[tammy]

This is what I like about this channel, its the only place where Led Zeppelin and Brian Ferneyhough can come up for comparison.

[federicocarpi]

Wow, thanks for doing the job! I was looking for this for a long time. That bar 29 is still so complicated to time even with the score in front of you.

[JonathanOvnat]

Nice :D Short and entertaining! And what a fantastic singer.

[guobettyful]

As for someone who likes to clap along a favourite piece, this one always drives me crazy.

[adamkentisaac]

The part at measure 29 (led into by the two eighth notes at the end of the previous measure) "feels" like it's a beat early, like it's come in too soon, based on the rhythm of the riff as it has been played so far in the song. So that part "breaks the rules" established by the song, but does not actually break the rules of the time signature at all, if that makes any sense.

[ze_rubenator]

Hah, did not expect to see that song on your channel. Played it as part of my final bass exam concert in high school. We made no attempt to figure out the time signatures, we just played it like we heard it. It was killer. We followed up with Spain by Chick Corea, and a Trick Of The Tail by Genesis. That was 10 years ago now... fuck me.

I got a B+

[saibhandari]

Shaking it up with some rock music I see

[jarosemann]

You need more views. Here's a bump for the algorithm. You got the makings for a proper music channel.

[kyle-silver]

It remains true: all music is in 4/4 if you don’t count like a nerd

[BobdeVille]

No Kidding this music is simple 4/4 just like the crazy part in Staiway to Heaven, just Four Four. Here in Black Dog, Led Zep really try to fool all those music nerds! What they are doing is to play via eye contact. Bonzo laid it down and cound the others in, just simple like that no mathematics at all. If you don‘t believe and prefer to go the hard road for this (easy) song, go and listen to the live recordings of Black Dog.

Sorry but this is true. Led Zeppelin really had some odd time signatures, go and check their Songs The Crunge or The Ocean these are true oddmeters.

[alexschafferphilly]

how come after "make you sting" it shows that a bar of 3/4 is coming up but the next bar is 5/8?

[svjat]

This is definitely the most absurd way to notate this song that I have ever seen. Theoretically it is all correct, but in real life it coud not be farther from the truth. Of course, you can divide a bar of 4/4 into 3/16+4/16+2/16+7/16. But that dont necessaryly mean that it makes sense to do so.
Bonham would be VERY pleased with this, though. Because it would show him that his tricks worked out perfectly. (Example: "When they hear this they will assume the first crash in the song is on 1! Hahahahaha....")
And by the way the tempo is not 160. It's 80.

[karolcpm-]

Never thought I'd learn something new from a seemingly complex non-classical piece (song actually lol).

[purplelord]

yup, the sheet music does not help me understand this at all :D