George Lawrence Stone was born in 1886.  His father was a drummer, teacher and manufacturer named George Burt Stone.  George Lawrence learned to play drums and xylophone from his dad.  As he got a little older he moved on to study with other successful drummers including Harry Bowers and Frank Dodge.  He studied music theory at the New England Conservatory of Music and timpani with Oscar Schwar of the Philadelphia Orchestra.  He also said he considered the rudimental drummers of the Revolutionary and Civil War’s to be his drumming ancestors.  In his book Military Drum Beats, he recognizes two Civil War books, Gardiner A. Strube’s Drum and Fife Instructor and George Bruce & Dan Emmett’s Fifers’ & Drummers’ Guide “which we accept as authority and which I give full credit.” When he was 16 he joined the musicians union becoming its youngest member ever!  In 1910 he played xylophone on the Vaudeville Circuit.  He also played timpani and bells with the Boston Festival Orchestra, he was in the pit of Boston’s Colonial Theatre, and was a member of the Boston Opera Orchestra. In 1933 Stone was a founding member of the National Association of Rudimental Drumming (NARD).  He served as its president for 15 years.  He also wrote articles on drumming technique for the International Musician.  Stone wrote one of the legendary drum books of all time, Stick Control!  Often referred to as the drummer’s bible, you can find drummers of all genres crediting it with helping their performance.  Modern drummer polled teachers and performers, trying to find the greatest drum book of all time.  60 years after it was written Stick Control received the most votes.  Stone was also very active as an instructor, eventual teaching and consulting many musical giants including Gene Krupa, Lionel Hampton, Joe Morello and Vic Firth. Joe Morello was 16 when he started taking lessons from Mr. Stone.  Stick Control inspired Joe to create his own variations on some patterns, adding accents to the exercises.  Stone was inspired by Joe’s variations and utilized some of his idea’s in his next book Accents and Rebounds.  The book was dedicated to Joe Morello.  In an article, this is what Joe had to say about Mr. Stone. “Every lesson was a joy to go to…if you did something wrong he had a way of letting you know about it, but without belittling you.  He was a very gentle kind of man and he had a good sense of humor.  He had a way of bringing out the best in me!   Another of his most successful students was Vic Firth.  Here is what he had to say about Mr. Stone.   “Mr. Stone was a droll Yankee type, but a very sweet    man.  He was probably one of the first technique builders of the teachers and felt it was terribly important to make music.  His theory was that you can be a sculptor by virtue of owning a hammer and chisel, but you don’t really sculpt anything until you have the technique to do it.  Likewise, before you can do anything shapely in music, you’ve got to have the hands to do it with.”   One last quote gives insight into Mr. Stone’s thoughts, leading to his success as a teacher.   “If I have had my share of success in teaching others, its origin was in the way my father taught me, and in his counsel, so often repeated:  ‘if you accept a pupil you accept a responsibility.  In one way or another you’ve got to go through with him.  There’s no alibi if you don’t.”