Last month we included the second part of Joe Morello’s “Stone Killer” that was inspired by George Lawrence Stone’s “Stone Killer” exercise. These exercises originally appeared in Joe Morello’s book Master Studies. Originally George only wrote out the first four lines of the first example of the “Stone Killer” which we included in previous months. Joe Morello expanded on it by adding accents, and then applying the same idea to duples,, which we are including this month. The idea, as Stone explained it to Morello, was to work each hand individually before you put them together. Joe found it to be a tremendous exercise for endurance. (Billy Gladstone used this same concept of developing each hand individually.) The first time you try this you may not be able to do many repetitions. If necessary, start by doing each line only 10 times. Gradually work your way up to where you […]

April 2023 Issue