By Judy Jennings
© Copyright 2015
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| Hurricane Carla and the Bad News Blues Band at the Chicago Bar |
Some days you just have to get out of your comfort zone. That’s what Hurricane Carla did two years ago
when she was feeling stuck with her saxophone.
Hall of Famer Carla Brownlee at odds with her sax? That’s unimaginable, right? Still, there she was, momentarily going
nowhere.
“I was having a
mental block with practicing the sax,” Brownlee confesses. “I was feeling inadequate. I was feeling like I’m not there, I’m not
there, I’m not there. I don’t know what
to practice, I don’t know how to play.” Frustrated, she
decided to do something that was completely out of her norm.
“I got on a jag
where I was practicing drums three, four hours a day,” Brownlee recalls. “I’m a terrible drummer, terrible. I don’t play the drums.” She started “at zero”, playing along with
records and simply working out the physical coordination.
Within a few
days, the act of practicing the drums produced results that surprised even
Brownlee. “It brought about a sense of
concentration that totally blew away everything else I’d ever practiced,” she
exclaims. “It was the most amazing
thing.
“I kept playing
along with records, playing the rudiments, subdividing the beat, working with
the metronome, just working, working, working hour after hour,” Brownlee
explains. “Then when I’d listen to a
piece of music I’d go Oh, I’ve never heard that before! It just turned on a light bulb in my brain.”
“The main thing
with drumming is the concentration has to be complete for an extended period of
time. You can’t stop and sit back,
ever. With the sax, you can play a solo
and then sit back and listen to the other soloists, then you play a little more,
and you sit back. Drumming has to be
100% of the time, through the whole thing,” continues Brownlee.
“I haven’t
practiced drums in over a year, but it helped my sax playing immediately,” she
reflects. “Because now when I play a solo,
I’m thinking in rhythm phrases. I’m not
thinking about any of the notes I’m playing.
The notes don’t matter, but the rhythms matter. It’s the rhythms that pull people in, they
pull you along, and make you dance.
“So I’m
thinking a whole different way than I’d ever thought before,” Brownlee
concludes. “I’m not thinking tones,
notes, how many notes can I play? I’m
not thinking any of that. I’m thinking
Do these rhythms work? Is it a
phrase? Is it varied enough?
“You know what
I’m saying?”
