Today I’m going to teach you exactly how to play “Don’t Stop Believin.’” More importantly, I’m going to teach you how to get it hands together and the progression you want to go through because it’s a much more detailed progression than most people think. You can use this same progression to get any song hands together.
Before we get started, I want to make one thing clear – this song is what I like to call a “Level Up Song” because it will push you and challenge you. It has a couple tricky things in it – a syncopated left hand, three-note chords in the right hand, and not only chords, but they’re doing a pattern with the chords, which makes it even more challenging.
If you can learn to play “Don’t Stop Believin’” it will level up your piano playing ability and a lot of songs that used to be challenging are going to become easy. With that being said, it’s going to require WORK. You’re going to have to put in that GRIND. I really hope you’re up for it though, because it will improve your piano playing ability tremendously.
How to Start Learning to Play Don’t Stop Believin’
A big mistake people make when they’re trying to get hands together is they don’t have hands separate ROCK SOLID first. You want to always practice hand separate first.
We’re going to start with our left hand. Another mistake people make is starting with the right hand because it’s easier. We don’t want to start with the easy part, we want to start with the hard part first while we have more energy, focus, and concentration.
Left Hand Chunks
So, starting with our left hand, we want to use a concept called chunking – breaking up the piece into smaller and smaller sections, then gradually increasing the size of the “chunks”. This is a strategy you want to be using all the time when you’re practicing.
To begin, with your left hand, you’re fingers are going to be 5, 5-4-3-1, and you’re just going to practice that slowly and perfectly four times. I go through a few different small chunks you can use to learn this song, and it’ll be much easier to see them in this video.
Remember to ALWAYS practice slow enough so that you’re hitting the notes ACCURATELY. Also, when you do check out the video, it’s important to actually go through each step I mention. This means you’ll have to pause the video frequently so you can practice each chunk.
Once we’ve gone through those smaller chunks, we’re going to combine them into larger ones. Again, this is all just with the left hand to start.
Right Hand Chunks – Part 1
Once we’ve gone through these chunks with the left hand we’re going to switch to the right hand. Alternating left and right hand practice is great because it lets the left hand “sink in” to the brain while the right is practicing and vice versa.
The right hand has a lot of chords for this song, but it really isn’t that complicated once you know them. All I want you to practice for this part is moving between the chords. This is a practice strategy I call “Practicing in Chords” and for it you’re practicing arpeggiated chords as block chords in the beginning to drill them in easier.
We’re again going to start with smaller chunks and then combine them into larger chunks. This progression will be slow, but really allows you to learn the song.
Next, we’re going back to the left hand part, the same one you learned earlier. You’re going to practice this part another four times to really drill it down.
Right Hand Chunks – Part 2
Now that you have the left hand even more solidified, for the right hand we’re going to work on the rolls. We’re going to alternate between different chunks of chords – back and forth, back and forth – until we have them down. The chunks that are going to be hard are the transitions.
How we practice those transitions is by first practicing only those three notes that are part of the transition. Then we add another note to it. Next we add two more notes to all of those. Once you have that down we’re going to practice the whole thing. This same type of process will be used again and again to learn the entire song.
Once you’ve gone through this next series with the right hand (You can see the exact sequence in this video) you’re going to go back to the left hand again.
Right Hand Chunks – Part 3
Now for the right hand we’re going to try to put everything together.
If you can’t get the whole sequence together down pat, find the parts that trip you up and CHUNK them. At this point in learning how to play “Don’t Stop Believin,’” especially if you’re a beginner, this might be good enough for today. You might have to sleep on it, give your mind a rest, and come back to learning the rest of the song tomorrow in order to learn the whole sequence.
Getting Hands Together
Alright, for getting hands together the key is to get it in very small steps. It’s better to move SLOW and GET IT than to try to rush things and end up with a sloppy song at the end.
First thing you’re going to want to do is with the right hand just start tapping on your leg. While you’re tapping on your leg with your right hand you’re going to start playing with the left hand. You’re going to work just the first chunk to start then move on to the next one until you get through all of them.
You want to make sure you can get these first chunks solid – playing with your left hand while tapping with your right. If you can’t get these chunks while just tapping, you’re going to struggle when you actually have to play those complicated notes with your right hand as well.
Now this may be challenging for you. You will probably need to take it slow at first and maybe break the chunks into even smaller pieces until you get it.
Next, we’re going to see if you can play the whole left hand part, every chunk, while tapping with your right hand. Once you’re able to that, you’re going to play the whole thing again, but this time, having your right hand on the keyboard, you’re just going to play the note “E” while you go through your left hand pattern. This process is how you take hands together VERY incrementally so that each step is just a bit above the last step.
I know this is taking you a very long time, but as you do more and more songs hands together you’ll be able to skip more steps, you won’t have to tap on your leg, and you’ll get it much faster.
Next step, we’re going to hold out chords with our right hand while playing the melody with our left hand. Again, if you have to break up the chunks into smaller pieces, do that and rep it over and over until you get it.
The final step is where we actually do the right hand pattern with the left hand. This is a challenging step and what we’re going to use for this is the “Added Note Strategy” where we gradually add one note at a time until we’re playing an entire section.
Again, we want to practice each chunk multiple times to really build that muscle memory.
Playing the Entire Song
Now, since we’ve learned all the different chunks, we’re going to try to play the entire song. The parts that we get stuck at are the parts we have to drill in more.
Remember, this is a “Level Up Song.” So even though it’s challenging, if you learn it, it’ll really boost your skills. If you can get this song, you’ll also be able to get a lot of other songs. And yes, this will take some time to learn, but it’s a process you can go through to make sure you’ll learn it over time. Check out the video to get every single chunk and guideline step-by-step in a visual format.
Lastly, my free course, Become a Piano Superhuman, includes more strategies for helping you learn piano faster. Check it out to level up your piano game.
