The GRID is Mike’s way of finding a reliable science to improvisation of any kind. “The GRID” DVD won awards for best educational system in DRUM! and Modern Drummer magazine reader’s polls.
It essentially boils down every possible option in existence for improvisation in a certain situaion to just one page, or one image that the mind can learn to easily store and recall.
Mike invented this system while traveling the world giving drum clinics and teaching both privately and at the Berklee College of Music simultaneously. He needed a way to help students improvise for final exams at Berklee while playing music genres they did not know much about and were not interested in.
The GRID provides a flowchart approach to quicken the decsion making process that happens when a person improvises. Below, is the GRID for musicians. It works by assigning one element from each category to every expression, then making new ideas make sense with previous ones, much like how sentences work in a paragraph.
Although understanding how to use The GRID requires a more detailed explanation, you can at least see the seven main categories and the subcategories and/or elements within them.
Unlike the Periodic Table of Elements that lists elements without the forces of nature, The GRID lists elements (or single expressions,) as well as some of the forces (or attributes) associated with the elements.
Mike uses a GRID approach to improvise in situations other than drumming. This is an example of what Mike’s Brand is all about and why he relies heavily on the “scientific method” to justify why his systems work and also transcend just the single art of drumming.
The DVD (made by Hudson Music) can be searched for and purchased online, but Mike will soon offer autographed copies.