ALLINGER PERCUSSION

The “Grid” 4-2-1 is a methodology developed by Tom Float that trains students to play any figure in any configuration. The idea is to take a rudiment, say flam drags, and through manipulation of the “Grid” come away with the understanding and/or ability to play a flam drag forward, reverse, accents on the down beat, upbeat and everything in between. It allows for true mastery of a rudiment.

The “Grid” is more conceptual than anything. I haven’t seen many instances of it written out other than the foundation or fundamental Triplet Accent 4-2-1 or 16^th Note Accent 4-2-1 exercise. Instead it has been passed on through the Float family tree, so to speak. In my day with the Blue Devils I never saw any of the “Grid” on paper but we played around in it all the time. Not so much as a full line warm-up but more as individual practice or ramming on pads with some guys in the line. The mentality was that you never wanted someone else to whip something out that you couldn’t do. So, we’d all try to come up with different permutations of “gridding” figures that no one had seen before.

One way to think of the “Grid” is that you have accents on the Y-axes and diddle configurations or flams or whatever on the X-axes. Pick an X and Y and go over and up. Whatever accent/diddle/flam/sticking combination is at the convergence point you can run through the 4-2-1 concept. The 4-2-1 idea is the actual exercises of the “Grid.” You take whatever figure your starting with, let’s say diddle on one in triplets, and move the accent from the first note of the 8^th note triplet, to the second, to the third. You would play one bar of accents on one, another bar with accents on two, then another bar on three. That makes up the 4. For the 2, you play the same thing but cut each bar in half, two counts with accent on one, two counts on two, ect. You play the 2’s twice. The 1 of the 4-2-1 concept cuts it if half again. Now you would play each figure once and in succession. In other words with every quarter note your changing the figure. You play the 1’s four times each.

Explaining in text is much harder that it really is. Like I said it’s a conceptual thing. Once you can wrap your brain around the “Grid” and 4-2-1 idea the possibilities are just about endless. Your really only limited by your own creativity and skill set. I’ve included below a healthy amount of “Grid” possibilities and wrote them out in 4-2-1 format. There is also an MP3 for each variation. Some are pretty standard in the “Grid” community while others are fairly obscure. Have fun with it, come up with your own and show off to the buddies in your line!