Don’t Stop Believin’ from Journey – Sheet Music Arrangement for Simple Piano with Lyrics

The sheet music offered here is for “Don’t Stop Believin'” arranged for simple piano. The score I simplified from said it was the “ORIGINAL SHEET MUSIC EDITION As recorded by Journey” with “Words and Music by Steve Perry, Neal Schon, and Jonathan Cain”. The version on this page is easier than that score but not exactly “easy” piano music; I retained the original key of 4 sharps. I would still categorize this as “simple”, though.

Frankly, I thought I had never heard of this before. Then, as I actually wrote it out, I realized that it sounds slightly familiar. A friend told me that this is actually a rather well-known song, so that makes me very certain I have heard bits of it before. I really am unacquainted with non-classical music, and I suppose it is beneficial to get some exposure to these random modern pop songs.

Anyway, a student brought in the original sheet music edition in the size that tends to get bent in your bookbag and wanted to play it. “Okay,” I said, “let us look at it.” The melody vocal line was not always doubled by the piano part. My student found having to play the vocal line with his right hand and the right hand line with his left hand a little difficult to keep track of and requested a re-score and slight simplification. This is what I have reduced the original to. It occurs to me now that he requested I put some reminder accidentals on (“In parentheses, of course,” I had answered.), but I forgot to do that as I navigated all the D.C.s and fun symbol additions. Also, there were almost no dynamics in the original save for a single “cres.” followed by a nice forte, so I made some up.

Speaking of D.C.s, there is one issue with the audio attached: Sibelius is not understanding that we only take the second ending once and insists on playing it during the 3rd and 5th times. Subsequently, the .mp3 below is not quite as I intended to export it… but we can all read music, right?

AH! Okay, so I really am opposed to dropped consonants and loose vowels when the language typically does not call for it! Reading the title of this song irritates me remarkably! But it does sound like a nice song overall. Musically speaking, that is.

To download free sheet music for “Don’t Stop Believin'” for simple piano as a .pdf, please click here: Don’t Stop Believin’ – Piano – Full Score