HURRICANE CARLA ON HOW PRACTICING THE DRUMS HELPED HER SAXOPHONE PLAYING

By Judy Jennings

© Copyright 2015

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?”