# How Crazy Train Works

## Метаданные

- **Канал:** 12tone
- **YouTube:** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q1_akD-68Hw

## Содержание

### [0:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q1_akD-68Hw) Segment 1 (00:00 - 05:00)

Ozzy Osbourne has always had an eye for talent. his bands over the years have featured a murderer's row of metal greatness, from Zakk Wylde to Robert Trujillo to the vastly underrated Tommy Clufetos. but of all the incredible musicians he's worked with, there's one name that stands out, one visionary artist who, besides maybe Tony Iommi himself, understood Ozzy better than anyone else. I'm talking, of course, about Randy Rhoads. with one foot each in classical guitar and the world of hard rock, Rhoads was plucked from the LA scene to join Ozzy on his debut record as a solo artist. and though their collaboration was short, recording just two albums together before Rhoads's tragic death in 1982, those two albums stand as two of the most important works in his career, full of stone-cold classics like Mr. Crowley, Diary Of A Madman, Over The Mountain, and, of course, the subject of this video, Crazy Train. let's take it apart. (tick, tick, tick, tock) before we get started, if you want to see my next video a month early or just watch this one ad-free, those are both live now on Patreon. there's a link in the description, more on that at the end of the video. normally I like to start at the beginning of the song and work forward from there, but it's Crazy Train. I've gotta start with the riff. (bang) it's actually pretty straightforward. like, rhythmically, it's constant 8th notes, creating this relentless, driving momentum reminiscent of the titular train. it barrels forward without breaks or stops, chugging along indefinitely, or at least until the next section. and the phrase structure is also very classic. the riff is two bars long, and each bar has its own distinct shape. the first half is one long line: (bang) using what's called a pedal point to create a dynamic contour. a pedal is a note that you keep coming back to while the rest of the line moves. here, on every off-beat 8th, Rhoads returns to a low F#. this repetition divides the line, and we can think of it not as a single melody full of leaps, but as two overlapping melodies unfolding in the same space. the lower one is, of course, the static F#s: (bang) anchoring the riff with a straightforward, syncopated chugging figure. this holds it in place, and that grounding effect creates a beautiful contrast with the more colorful upper line. (bang) this is, once again, simple: he starts with a perfect 5th leap, then he does a little neighbor-tone figure, rising from C# to D, then back down. D is the b6 of the key, which is a really interesting interval. the b6 wears lots of emotional hats: it can sound sad, nostalgic, or wounded, but in this context, with the neighbor-tone highlighting its position a mere half-step above the much more stable 5th and the pedal point forcing you to hear it in a series of large melodic leaps, the adjective I'm inclined to reach for is "ominous". it feels like a threat, not by the artists, not by Rhoads, but by the song itself. it says the train is approaching, and you're tied to the tracks. also, and this isn't necessary for a pedal point line but I do think it's really cool, the two separate melodies share the first note. it's another F#, so it fits melodically into the lower line, but it's also on a beat, fitting it rhythmically into the higher one. this blurs the line between the two parts, marrying the offbeat syncopation to the melodic structure for a greater sense of musical cohesion. neat! anyway, the second bar is completely different. (bang) first, phrase structure: instead of a single melodic shape developing slowly across four beats, here he plays two shapes that are each only two beats long. this is called fragmentation, where you start with a long phrase, then build energy and excitement by splitting it into smaller ones. and I really like it here because it's a great contrast to the unrelenting 8th notes: between this and the syncopated pedal, the riff is full of little tricks to create rhythmic interest, or more precisely, metric interest, without losing that driving pulse. despite being, on paper, basically the simplest possible rhythm, Rhoads knows how to dress it up so it still feels dynamic. melodically, the two fragments are extremely similar. both halves start with the same walk down the scale, from the 4th to the 2nd. (bang) the only difference is what they do next. the first time, he turns around and walks back up to A. this sets up a smooth transition to the B on beat 3: (bang) so that, in contrast to the large leaps in bar 1, bar 2 is moving entirely by step. or, almost entirely: in the second half, instead of returning to A, he continues down, skipping past the root and landing on E, the b7. (bang) this highlights a really important point: when you hear a 4-3-2 walkdown, your pattern-loving brain makes a strong prediction that the next note will be 1. in the first half, that expectation is delayed, bouncing back to the 3 and starting over as if the music is saying "hold on, let me try that again. " once it does, though, it again misses the root, this time overshooting, and there's two ways to read this. one is as a failure to launch: if we assume the bar is supposed to sound like this: (bang) then missing the final F# subverts our expectation and creates

### [5:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q1_akD-68Hw&t=300s) Segment 2 (05:00 - 10:00)

a sense of narrative disappointment. but that's not how I hear it, because the F# doesn't stay missing for long. it shows up on the very next 8th note, so I hear the E not as a deception, but as an extension. if, instead of treating each statement as a self-contained riff, we zoom in on the transition between them: (bang) we see a beautiful melodic technique called encircling. this is where, to set up a target note, you play the notes above and below it, trapping it in the middle and effectively resolving from both sides simultaneously. much like the 8th-note rhythm, delaying the root by encircling it creates a powerful sense of continuity: by the time you hear that resolution, a new statement has already begun. and finally, I have to talk about the tone. this is apparently a little controversial, and I do get why, but I love it. it sounds great. it's a pretty thin tone, with a heavy emphasis on mid-range frequencies. that sort of thing can be hard to hear if you're not used to listening for it, but to see what I'm talking about, compare this: (bang) to, say, Dimebag Darrel. (bang) the latter feels richer, thicker, with a greater sense of weight. and in case you're thinking these differences might be a register thing, the Crazy Train riff is actually, for the most part, lower. this is all about pickups, effect pedals, and amp settings. Guitar World has a great rundown of all the technical specs, which I'll link in the description, but I'm gonna focus on two main questions: why are the notes so clear, and why is the tone so thin? the clarity is easy to explain: while Rhoads is obviously using a distortion pedal, the amp itself is set to a relatively low gain, at least by metal standards, so it's not contributing a lot of overdrive. distortion works by effectively clipping the sound. this creates a whole mess of new frequencies, called intermodulation frequencies because they're produced by the interactions of all the existing frequencies in the initial sound. if that sounds complicated, all you need to know is that the more complex the signal is, the more distortion messes it up. so if you're distorting twice, once at the pedal and then again at the amp, all the added noise from the first step creates new intermodulations for the second. and that can sound really cool: a lot of modern metal depends on it. but by backing off just a little and letting the pedal do the heavy lifting, Rhoads creates a harsh but still clean tone that lets the melodic content of his playing cut beautifully through the mix, instead of the raw wall of sound you get from heavier distortion. the thinness, on the other hand, comes mainly from the EQ settings. y'know, bass, mids, treble. this, again, works in two stages: if the Guitar World article is correct, his amp is set to a relatively flat EQ with a bit of a cut on the bass frequencies, but he's also running it through an EQ pedal. or, more specifically for the gearheads watching, the MXR Ten Band EQ. this provides more fine-grain control over the sound, and he uses it to significantly boost the mids, centered around 500hz. boosting the mids is acoustically similar to cutting the bass and treble, creating, like, the guitar-tone equivalent of a really nasal speaking voice, and the brightness of that again helps it cut through. that could sound pretty annoying, but I don't think it does, because the song isn't missing its low end. check out the tone on Bob Daisley's bass. (bang) actually, let's talk more about Daisley, 'cause he's doing a lot of work. like most metal, Crazy Train is entirely riff-based, but in most sections, they're playing double-riffs. Rhoads and Daisley are each doing their own thing, and in each section, they fit together differently. here, Rhoads is playing lead, and Daisley's job is punctuation. he's got these short two-note bursts with long gaps in between, highlighting that fragmented phrase structure by accenting the start of each segment. think of it like a hype man joining in for the most important words, but for riffs. but he's not doing it the obvious way. to my mind, if you want to set up a downbeat with two attacks, the natural choice would be to put the second one on the beat, with the first as a rhythmic approach, like this. (bang) instead, Daisley puts the first hit on the beat: (bang) so you get this sort of ricochet effect, like a really slow scotch snap, bouncing off the beat and drawing your ear forward. this makes you really notice the gaps, and it compliments the momentum of the guitar by never creating a clear stopping point. which, I think, is the goal: technically, he didn't need to play a second note at all. but if he just hit the downbeat, his punctuation would sound like a period when what the song needs is a comma. or maybe a semicolon? I can never remember what those are for. the note choices are also interesting. since he's emphasizing the guitar line, he could've just followed Rhoads's contour: (bang) and it would've sounded fine. but instead, he performs almost like a melodic reduction, picking out the single most important note in each fragment. in the first bar, he locks into the pedal and plays F#. in the second bar, there's actually also a hidden pedal. in the same off-beat position Rhoads put the F#s, now he repeatedly plays A. (bang) it's harder to hear 'cause there's no large leaps to draw

### [10:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q1_akD-68Hw&t=600s) Segment 3 (10:00 - 15:00)

your attention, and he does change it up on beat 4, but most of the phrase dances around that A, so it's what Daisley plays. for the last fragment, though, there's no pedal to guide him. that leaves a couple options, but the obvious one, and the one he picks, is E. it's the target of the melodic walkdown and it's the note that drives the incoming resolution. but that's not it. Rhoads's riff is two bars long, but Daisley's is four. the second half is pretty similar to the first: (bang) except instead of the A, he jumps up to D. and this is, on the surface, confusing: D only happens once in the whole guitar riff, and it's nowhere to be found in the fragment it's meant to support. what gives? well, I could start talking about harmony. like, D is the bVI, and the bVI chord has a pretty similar function to the bIII, in this case A, so you can easily substitute one for the other. also, bVI-bVII-I is an iconic cadence in minor keys. but while those are both correct, I'm not sure they're relevant. this is a riff, after all, and in a riff, register matters. if the D was down an octave: (bang) you'd hear that walk-up cadence, but it's not. instead, I hear this as a reference: following just the bass, he leaps from F# to D, which is a direct quote from the first bar of the guitar. (bang) it's a lot slower, because the bass is moving slower, but it's the same two notes, and occasionally adding the leap creates a more interesting melodic contour. the rest of the bassline lives in a very small box, so it's cool to occasionally break out. and then we're finally on to the verse. let's start with Rhoads again. (bang) alright. we've changed keys. kinda. the intro was in F# minor, but this is clearly A major. but I say kinda because these two keys have a special relationship. they're relative. they have the same notes. I never know how much to explain this because it's a thing you learn pretty early at music school but it does seem to confuse a lot of non-musicians, but basically, a scale is two things: a collection of pitches, and a single note, the root, that all the others orbit around. relative scales use the same pitch collection, but choose a different one as their root, changing the emotional character of the notes. like, in F#, D is the b6, a dark, sad sound, while in A, it's the 4, which is bold and directional. got it? great. anyway they did that. we're in a major key now, with all the brightness that implies, but the notes are the same so the transition is smooth. and this changing tonality is a key part of the song's story: Crazy Train is about how messed up the world has become, but while the minor sections convey the danger and despair of living under constant conflict, these major verses say that it's not hopeless. the world is worth fighting for. and we can even see how these two sides of the message are connected, thanks to a little flourish at the end of the intro: in the final riff, instead of the second bar, Rhoads plays this: (bang) matching Daisley's bassline with power chords and bringing that harmony stuff back into play. the guitar stays in the same register for both chords, so we do finally get that bVI-bVII walkup, implying a triumphant return to F#. but because they're relative scales, these chords also belong in A, where they're the IV and the V. that means he's setting up a resolution that he simultaneously subverts while also delivering a different one, transforming the expected minor cadence into the most classic major cadence. it's really smooth. back to the verse riff, Rhoads is playing this crossrhythm pattern with a full beat of 16th notes on A, then a chord stab that he holds for half a beat. (bang) that's 1 and a half beats total, so it phases in and out of sync with the underlying meter established by Daisley and drummer Lee Kerslake. some chord stabs are on the beats, others aren't. this also has the effect of accelerating the pattern: there's four chord stabs in two bars, a perfect fit for a two-beat cell: (bang) but by only doing 1 and a half, he winds up finishing with half a bar to spare, and that matters because Daisley's taken on a new role. in the intro, the relationship between the bass and guitar was punctuation, but here, it's more like a conversation. the bassline is incredible simple in the first bar, just playing A on the beats, but in bar 2: (bang) hey, look, it's another pedal! lotta pedals in this song. this one's different, though: the pedals in the intro riff were on the offbeats, with the melodic line on the beats, but Daisley flips that, keeping A on the beats and adding this high walkdown in the gaps in between. your ears are drawn to the moving line, so despite using the exact same 8th-note pattern, this version has a lot more bounce to it, a perfect complement to the guitar's crossrhythm. the two lines overlap a bit at the start of the bar, as Rhoads wraps up while Daisley starts going: (bang) but mostly they stay out of each other's way, so you get this cool hand-off where the two parts are constantly responding to each other, each taking their turn in the spotlight and then giving it back.

### [15:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q1_akD-68Hw&t=900s) Segment 4 (15:00 - 20:00)

on top of that, of course, is Ozzy. (bang) I'll be honest, I don't have a lot to say about this melody. it's mostly outlining an A major triad and reinforcing the new key center, but we already covered that. still, though, I do want to talk about his tone. there's very few voices in popular music that are as easily identifiable as Ozzy Osbourne. and there's three main factors that I think contribute to the classic Ozzy sound. first is what music theorists call buzziness. that is, he's leaning the sound forward and letting it resonate in his mask and sinuses. but unlike, say, Bob Dylan, he's not overdoing it. his tone isn't closed off in that same way, so it doesn't sound super nasal. it's just bright, giving it a powerful presence in the mix despite not being particularly full. there's maybe a connection here to Rhoads's bright, mids-heavy guitar tone, but that might be a stretch. dunno. the second thing is tension. vocal tension is a key part of that gritty, gravelly tone you hear from artists like Bruce Springsteen or James Hetfield. but while Ozzy sometimes has a bit of rasp to his voice: (bang) it's usually a lot more subtle. he's squeezing gently, enough to restrict the sound but not enough to distort it. this has a really interesting effect: to my ears, at least, it seems to smooth out the perceived difficulty. like, this: (bang) is objectively harder to sing than this: (bang) but as I listen to it, they sound pretty similar. in both cases, he's just barely on the edge of struggling, like the notes are a challenge that he's overcoming. compare that to, say, Freddy Mercury, for whom all the notes just sound easy. I'm not jealous, you're jealous. which brings me to the third thing: control. you might not think of Ozzy as a very controlled singer, but that's an illusion. check out how crisp this run is. (bang) don't get me wrong, he's no Beyonce, but the dude hits his notes. the reason it doesn't feel like it is tension, both in his throat and also in how he enunciates vowels: especially in this higher register, singers are taught to open their mouths, blending the vowel into something more comfortable. two of the worst vowels to sing up high are "ih" and "ee", because they require such a closed mouth shape. I'd naturally move them more toward "eh" and "ay", but uh… not Ozzy. (bang) damn, dude. chill out. this tight, tense delivery covers up an impressive level of precision, so he sounds like a complete amateur who just happens to be nailing it. it's a really cool voice. that takes us to the chorus, and here, I'm gonna focus on the bass, for two reasons. first, I learned to play this song on bass in high school and fell in love with this part. it's so good. you'll see. and second, Daisley and Rhoads have switched relationships again. we had punctuation, then conversation, and now it feels like decoration. seriously, listen to the guitar. (bang) he's staying out of the way. the first bar is power chords, and in the second bar he just does this little fill with string harmonics, leaving a ton of space for the bass to punch through. this is the Bob Daisley show. so what's he doing? well, he's doing a lot. the chorus has three distinct bass riffs, starting with this one. (bang) the structure here is kind of a mirror of the intro riff: two bars long, with one long fragment and two shorter ones. but this time the long one's at the end. the first bit: (bang) is a simple neighbor tone, with F# dipping down to E and back up, again echoing the neighbor tone Rhoads played in the intro. this quickly establishes that the major key from the verse is over, and we're back to F# minor. the second fragment: (bang) similarly grounds us in the intro riff, doing that same F#-D leap that was so iconic in both the guitar and bass. it develops that idea, though, by syncopating: both fragments are three-note cells, but the first one starts on beat 1, while the second, instead of starting on beat 3, waits for one extra 8th note. (bang) that lets him hold the F# for a little longer, and it puts the D on the last upbeat of the bar, so we get a little rhythmic pop to accent the melodic leap. and the third fragment is one that pretty much everyone gets wrong. my old bass teacher taught me that it was a scale-based walk starting on E, like this: (bang) and that's still the version in most bass tabs I could find. but what he actually plays is this. (bang) just a bunch of half-steps. and, like, I get it. bass notes can be a little tricky to pick out, especially with so much else happening, and the scale-based version makes sense. the top notes are even correct, it's just the bottom two that aren't. back before isolated stems were readily available, this'd be a perfectly reasonable guess, and honestly, it sounds just as good. it's just not what Bob Daisley played. that said, I think part of why this mishearing is so common is that the effect is basically the same. either way, this fragment borrows the syncopation idea from the last one, starting on the upbeat after 1, then slides up and down a bit. the A on top is an important target note, and the delayed start pushes it onto beat 3, the strongest metric position after the downbeat. the G#-A-G# figure cuts through beautifully in the middle

### [20:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q1_akD-68Hw&t=1200s) Segment 5 (20:00 - 25:00)

but the F# and G natural are more like passing notes, connecting that top part to the rest of the riff. it's not a big deal if you play it wrong: what matters here is the shape. he plays that twice, then we get the second riff. (bang) this is less fragmented, presenting itself more as one continuous melody. and it's a really interesting one, because there's kinda two interpretations. we could say he's done enough to re-establish the key of F# minor, so now he's exploring some of the more colorful notes in the scale. the line starts on A, the b3, walks down to E, the b7, then does this little turnaround figure to button it up. (bang) that's the simple answer. the more complicated and probably less correct but also still important answer is that while A may be the minor 3rd in F#, it's also the root in A major. we could read this as a return to the verse key, pivoting back with a simple I-V-I. and I'd almost believe that… if it weren't for what Ozzy sings on top. (bang) …oh boy. that complicates things. the lead line, or at least the one I hear as lead, is going 3-2-1 in F#, which should confirm that as the root. but he's harmonizing in 3rds, so there's also a second, higher part going 3-2-1 in A. *sigh* I'm still not comfortable calling this an actual key change, but it's definitely flirting with the relative major. there's a hint of optimism creeping back in, and Daisley doesn't like it. he follows that up by strongly reasserting F# with these blistering fast octaves: (bang) which he holds for two whole bars while Rhoads reclaims the spotlight for a second by going absolutely bananas. (bang) and finally, we have my favorite riff in the whole song. (bang) structurally, this is a development of the first riff, with the same starting point, the same three-note rhythmic cells, and the same switch from on-beat to off-beat phrasing. but this time, they keep that going into the second bar, doing another three-note cell and then a two-note cell, ending on beat 4 to facilitate the transition back to the beat at the start of the next bar. I love this in part because it's just super fun to play: the walk up and down the scale is incredibly simple, but the syncopated rhythm is super satisfying. but as a listener, I love it because we get yet another relationship between the bass and the guitar: we've had punctuation, conversation, and decoration, and now we finally get unison. Rhoads follows Daisley's part exactly, and after so many sections of close-but-not-quite-touching, hearing the two of them finally move as one single unit: (bang) is incredibly powerful. it's such a cool moment and it makes us realize how much we've been missing this. that ends by restating the D-E figure from the intro: (bang) and then we're back to the verse. these three sections cover most of the song, but there's a couple more parts to look at, starting with the bridge. this is a call-back to the intro riff. Daisley's part is exactly the same: (bang) and this time, Rhoads joins him: (bang) following along with power chords instead of playing his own riff, probably to make room for Ozzy singing on top. (bang) but to my mind, the real star of this section is, finally, Kerslake. we haven't talked about him yet, but he's been laying down some really solid grooves all song, and in the bridge, he finally gets a chance to shine. the lack of guitar riff slows the momentum of the song, which he responds to by going absolutely nuts. (bang) one thing I like to do when analyzing drums is to start from a really basic pattern and see what changes I have to make to get to what was actually played. in this case, the closest starting groove is, I think, a metronome snare march. (bang) so let's transform that. first, of course, there's no snare. instead, he's doing simultaneous hits on the two lowest toms. (bang) the snare is a mid-heavy sound that cuts through the mix beautifully. replacing that with deep, booming toms creates an anchor around the soundscape, making it feel darker and more desperate. the next change is to bump all the kicks back by an 8th-note: (bang) taking the strongest indicator of where the beats are and misaligning it for a disorienting off-beat pulse. to keep time, he replaces those on-beat hits with some pretty subtle hi-hat stomps: (bang) that I don't think really affect the groove but they are there. and finally, the last change is that, on the last two beats of each bar, he replaces the single, simultaneous tom hit with a sort of triplet roll: (bang) which gives it this frantic, dynamic energy that beautifully contrasts the

### [25:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q1_akD-68Hw&t=1500s) Segment 6 (25:00 - 26:00)

slower speed of the riffs. put all that together, swap the midi drums for real ones: (bang) and you get a chaotic bulldozer groove that knocks you out right as the song threatens to lose momentum. here, more than anywhere else, you can really hear that train going off the rails. that leads into the solo, and… ok, look. I really wanted to talk about the solo in this video. that's half the reason I wanted to cover this song. but it's gotten so long already. if I wanted to fit the solo, I'd have to rush through it, and I'm not gonna disrespect Randy Rhoads like that. this solo deserves to be analyzed in detail. so that's what I'm gonna do in my next video. I'm gonna break down the solo to Crazy Train, plus a couple more iconic Rhoads solos like Over The Mountain and Diary of a Madman. and if that sounds interesting… I actually already did it. that video's live right now on Patreon. it'll be up on youtube in a couple weeks, but if you can't wait, there's a link to my patreon in the description. these videos take a lot longer to produce than most people think, and I literally couldn't afford to make them without the support of my patrons. so if you like what I do and you want to see more of it, please consider signing up. plus, the songs I analyze are chosen by my patrons, so you can help make me talk about songs you like. again, link in the description. and as always, thanks for watching. thanks to our featured patrons, Susan Jones, Jill Sundgaard, Howard Levine, Warren Huart, Damien Fuller-Sutherland, Neil Moore, and Geoff! check out Patreon for a fuller outro, and as always, keep on rockin'.

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*Источник: https://ekstraktznaniy.ru/video/43918*