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A Fun & Easy Way To Approach Drum Fills

Jost Nickel  /  UPDATED Jun 1, 2023

In this lesson, Jost Nickel is going to teach you the approach he developed to aid himself and his students in the creation of unique and effective drum fills. This method will make your pattern creation way more fun, easy, and above all else, varied. Jost will also teach you ways to utilize and transform the drum fills you already know so you’ll have a nice toolbox of ideas by the time you’ve applied these concepts!

Remember the download the sheet music here so you can follow along!

Lesson Index:
0:00 – Play-Along: “The Check In”
4:33 – Introduction
6:31 – Fills #1-5: Displacing your fills
20:48: Improv. with concepts
23:32: Getting familiar with the rhythms
27:15: Using numbers to build fills
40:41: Drum solo

About Jost:
Similar to his friends Benny Greb, Marco Minnemann, and the newly emerging Anika Nilles (one of Jost’s students), Jost Nickel is one of the new breed of drummers emerging from Germany that are taking contemporary drumming in a whole new direction. Jost is currently a part of German supergroup Jan Delay & Disko No.1 whose last CDs went straight to #1 in the charts. He has appeared as a clinician and educator in many drum festivals including the Meinl Drum Festival, PASIC, and the Montreal Drum Festival, and has also recently published his first book, “Jost Nickel’s Groove Book”, which offers a deep insight into his thoughtfully crafted playing and deep pocket.


Jost Nickel is currently a part of supergroup Jan Delay & Disko No.1 whose past CDs went straight to #1 on the charts. He has appeared as a clinician and educator at many drum festivals including the Meinl Drum Festival, PASIC, and the Montreal Drum Festival. You can check out his first book, “Jost Nickel’s Groove Book”, which offers insight into his thoughtfully crafted playing and deep pocket.

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