“It proved to be too tricky for everyone to hear and perform together without losing track of the beat”: Led Zeppelin's John Paul Jones explains what people get wrong about his Black Dog riff – which originally tripped up even Jimmy Page and John Bonham

John Paul Jones performs onstage with Led Zeppelin at Earl's Court in London in May 1975.

Starting in 1996, Guitar World was honored to publish a handful of lesson columns authored by Led Zeppelin bassist John Paul Jones. The following is the first of these columns, a breakdown of the infamously twisty riff that underpins the Zeppelin classic, Black Dog. It has been edited in certain instances for use online.

Hello everyone. Over the next several months I plan on sharing with you some of my approaches to playing, writing, and arranging music. I'll be discussing some of the concepts that I've gleaned over the years, illustrating them with some well-known – and a few not-so-well-known – musical examples.