Jost Nickel Snare Book

Also Ideal for Practicing On the Go with a Pad!

Jost Nickel’s Snare Book is all about the snare drum. Across 124 pages, he offers readers a wealth of diverse snare/pad exercises designed to improve playing technique and overall rhythm understanding.

“I like to practice but don’t enjoy exercises where I have to play the same thing over and over,” says Jost. “Then my mind wanders, and the lack of variation makes it hard to stay motivated to keep practicing. Of course, practice means repetition, but I don’t want to get bored either.”

In his usual structured style, Jost presents exercise concepts in various time signatures and subdivisions to systematically enhance rhythmic flexibility and motor independence, as well as better control over tempo changes. These strengthen rhythmic overview and help keep the exercises in this book engaging and varied.

“My Snare Book is definitely NOT a typical rudiments book,” Jost adds. “I’m confident that the variety of exercises in this book helps you stay focused and enjoy practicing. That makes it easier to play exercises as often as needed to make progress.”

The first chapter covers a wide range of warm-up exercises that combine familiar sticking patterns with unusual accents, subdivisions, and time signatures for those patterns. Additionally, you’ll find ostinato exercises to improve independence and interlocking exercises for better coordination.

Clear concepts shape the second part of the book, where Jost guides you step-by-step through exercises for double-stroke rolls, flams, multiple strokes, ruffs, inverted double-stroke rolls, paradiddles, and more. These enable you to create your own exercises by keeping the approach but changing the content.

The 12-page supplement with reading texts completes the package.