Black Dog Challenge

Jimmy Page just rocks in this song!  It’s such a cool riff!  Have a listen:  Black Dog Riff

I did a basic transcription while listening to it.  The funny thing about this riff is that it sounds amazing and I thought it would be really hard to play, but it turns out to be basically A minor pentatonic, and it’s pretty easy once you run through it a few times.

You can see in the tab on my transcription that I was experimenting a bit (in parentheses) with alternate fingerings.  Though the fingering in the second measure requires a position change, it just feels less sloppy to me rather than trying to play the high E on the B string (like I have in parentheses). Similarly, in measure 4 and 5, you can play that riff all in the same position without sliding down to the open A power chord, but it feels harder to play.   Also the power chord sounds more, well, powerful in the open position.   You can see if you watch carefully in this video from a 1973 concert that Jimmy plays it with the position changes.  Anyway, it’s interesting and good exercise to learn to play it several different ways, and your fingers or ears may just prefer it one over the other.

There’s a cool cascading rhythmic offset in the second half of the riff.  Interestingly, Jimmy seems to always rush the transition from the second part back to the first.  Makes you wonder if he was doing it on purpose, or just in a rush to get a drink 🙂