Black Dog
Led Zeppelin · 1971
Holding steady time while the band's riff crosses the barline is a classic phrasing challenge.
- Artist
- Led Zeppelin
- Year
- 1971
- Genre
- classic rock
- Drummer
- John Bonham
- Tempo
- 85 bpm
- Time
- 4/4
- Feel
- swung sixteenths, tricky phrasing
- Difficulty
- advanced
Drummer's Quick-Start
Practice tempos
Woodshed
52bpm
Building
68bpm
Target
85bpm
The feel
A swung sixteenths, tricky phrasing in 4/4 around 85 BPM. A comfortable mid-tempo — lock the backbeat first, then shape the dynamics.
What to watch
- •Keep the 16th-note hand dead even; let the accents — not volume spikes — do the talking.
- •Advanced: isolate the single hardest bar and loop it slowly before ever playing along.
How to learn it
Well-known tutorials exist for this one — use the links below, and play along from your own copy.
Generated from this song's groove profile — analysis only, no notation. A human-reviewed AI brief with a full groove breakdown, key moments and song map replaces this as briefs roll out.
Learn it
Find drum tutorials on YouTube ↗iDrum links to where lessons already live — we don't host recordings or publish transcriptions. Play along from your own music.
Discussion
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