Understanding The Immigrant Song

Some additional thoughts: 1) On the bass run thing, yes, I am aware that sometimes artists just do things 'cause they sound good, and there's not necessarily a specific motivation to them. But when they do that, usually they wind up doing fairly predictable things because what sounds good to us is heavily influenced by the other music we listen to, so even if the artist doesn't know why they're doing something, you can still explain the decision structurally. My point here is that I can't find a way to do that: If they were just "playing what sounded good", they'd most likely have just played a B under the B chord and then moved to C on the downbeat, so the fact that they intentionally didn't do that means that, for some reason, that sounded worse to them than doing it this way. What I'm struggling to ascertain is why it sounded worse to them. 2) If I'm being honest, I think this song is better notated in cut time 'cause most of the patterns repeat in two-beat chunks, but I didn't want to get into that in the video and the backbeat explanation is a little easier to get if you're using 4/4 so I went with that. But if I was just trying to transcribe it, 2/2 is the time signature I'd use. 3) If you wanted to, you could probably analyze the chorus in F# dorian as well, in which case the C major is borrowed from locrian. Same basic explanation, just a different reference point. 4) Some folks are saying that apparently some "official" transcription out there has the last note of the riff as an E instead of an F#. I encountered that transcription (or some variation of it) while researching this video, but playing it along with the track felt incorrect. To be sure, though, I ran the same isolation process on a random bar of the riff, and it's definitely playing an F# there, at least in that one bar. It's Zeppelin, so it's very possible they slipped an E in there occasionally to mess with me, but I think generally incorporating other notes, even in passing, would really disrupt the drum-pattern feel of the riff so in addition to not matching what I hear when I listen to it, it would make very little compositional sense. 5) On that note, some folks are also saying that the C9 at the end is incorrect, and that Page is actually playing a weird voicing of a G minor. This one I think is actually probably correct, as it comes from interviews with Page himself. I'm not convinced I got the name wrong, though: From an analytical perspective, the full "chord" is a combination of all notes sounded simultaneously, in this case counting both the bass and the guitar, so while it's true that if you isolate the guitar part it's a G minor, I think once you factor in the bass, which is playing a C, the full voicing is still probably best read as C9 voiced without a 3rd, which admittedly reduces its dominant, directional power significantly, but I still think that C9(no 3) is the most accurate name for the full collection of notes. You could also call it Gmi/C, but that doesn't really convey the dissonance of it as well, and I'm personally not a huge fan of using inversion notation for notes outside the chord.

I've always called those a "hi-hat choke".

Not a drummer, but I suggest calling the hi-hat thing a splooshy wooshy.

The mysterious C note IS the immigrant.

Mystery solved: it’s because a song about Vikings needs the C (sea)

Lesson learned: John Paul Jones doesn’t make mistakes

Number one reason as to why it's not a mistake in the bass: It's John Paul Jones.

I'm a drummer and I've always heard the high hat technique being called a high hat "bark"

I cant believe you said "hammer" and didnt draw a Mjolnir.

C'mon let's be honest. Drummers don't name shit. They just do it. source: bass player

I really wish that the music industry would allow the use of the original tracks of music for this type of video without claiming it.

The one note is the immagrant - a foreigner that no one would notice until examined.

12tone: exists C: “im about to end this mans whole career”

Obviously the members of Led Zepplin are talented musicions but I wonder if they analized this as deeply as you did. I can imagine them sitting aroung jamming and just saying that sounds cool.

I think he just added that C to screw with people analyzing his music.

John Paul Jones was, in the 1960's, considered to be an excellent arranger in the studio. It was his calling card and why he was hired for many sessions. I doubt hightly that C anticipation was an accident or that it servred no purpose. I bet if JPJ could be asked he would remember why he and Jimmy did it. I don't have any contacts (and JPJ is somewhat reclusive) but if he is contacted is usually happy to answer serious questions about the music.

I love how there's so many comments about the hi-hat thing but pretty much all the names are different. 'Choke', 'bark', 'pea soup', 'sizzle', 'wash' and 'slam' are some of them...

I interpret that "c" note as an anticipation of the C9 chord that shows up in the final riff. It introduces a little of the conflict that later on explodes in the ending. I'd call that note "foreshadowing" to borrow from literature.

Wow! I'm a non musician and barely understand 2% of what you are saying but I found your video extremely interesting and entertaining. I watched it three times in a row! Thank you

Usually cutting off cymbals is called a "choke". I guess the same apllies for the Hi-Hat, even though instead of using his hands, he closed it with the foot-pedal.