{"id":36072,"date":"2022-07-11T09:06:40","date_gmt":"2022-07-11T16:06:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.drumeo.com\/beat\/?p=36072"},"modified":"2022-08-22T14:33:21","modified_gmt":"2022-08-22T21:33:21","slug":"dont-stop-believin-journey-drums","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.drumeo.com\/beat\/dont-stop-believin-journey-drums\/","title":{"rendered":"Steve Smith Breaks Down His Drum Parts on &#8220;Don&#8217;t Stop Believin'&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/gUIatrSPPmg\" title=\"YouTube video player\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen=\"\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;Don&#8217;t Stop Believin'&#8221; isn&#8217;t just that song you hear everyone belting at the local pub on Karaoke Tuesdays &#8211; it has a legendary drum part that helped propel the song to stardom upon its release in 1981.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.drumeo.com\/beat\/watch-steve-smith-perform-at-the-2020-drumeo-festival\/\">Steve Smith<\/a> was the drummer for Journey for a total of 15 years (1978-1985, 1995-1998, and 2015-2020), and he&#8217;s responsible for the rhythms behind the massive hit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.drumeo.com\/beat\/steve-smith-interview-drumeo-gab-podcast-164\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Listen to an interview with Steve here &gt;&gt;<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n<p><span class=\"blue-text-block\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-36090 \" src=\"https:\/\/www.musora.com\/musora-cdn\/image\/quality=85\/https:\/\/drumeoblog.s3.amazonaws.com\/beat\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/06141235\/exclamation-point-icon-drumeo.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"37\" height=\"39\" title=\"\">&nbsp; Get the full transcription of Journey&#8217;s &#8220;Don&#8217;t Stop Believin'&#8221; (and other Journey songs) inside the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.drumeo.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Drumeo members area.<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n\n\n<p>&#8220;I conceived the idea of the drum parts as a melodic accompaniment,&#8221; he says, noting that he&#8217;d record the rehearsals and take the ideas home to develop them further. He even started playing open-handed so he could execute the parts he was hearing in his head.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In this video, you&#8217;re not only going to learn how Steve wrote the drum part, but you&#8217;ll see him play  through the whole song &#8211; and use the actual 24&#8243; Zildjian Ping Ride he played on the original track!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Here are some tips for any drummer covering &#8220;Don&#8217;t Stop Believin'&#8221;:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul><li>The most prominent voice on the kit in the bass drum, so really power those hits when you play four on the floor.<\/li><li>Don&#8217;t play rimshots. The song&#8217;s producer wanted Steve to hit dead center on the drum.<\/li><li>Go light on the hi-hats. Use the tip of the stick, not the shoulder.<\/li><li>Nail those bell hits!<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.drumeo.com\/\">Get a Drumeo membership<\/a> to access more tips and lessons from Steve Smith including his full video courses, &#8220;The Art Of Drum Soloing&#8221; and &#8220;Beyond The Books&#8221;.<\/p>\n\n\n<p><iframe class=\"email-form-include-full\" src=\"https:\/\/www.drumeo.com\/weeklyemail\" frameborder=\"none\"><\/iframe><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Steve Smith wrote and recorded the drum part for Journey&#8217;s hit single, &#8220;Don&#8217;t Stop Believin'&#8221; and he&#8217;s here to show you exactly how he did it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":164,"featured_media":36140,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4016,4022],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.drumeo.com\/beat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36072"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.drumeo.com\/beat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.drumeo.com\/beat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.drumeo.com\/beat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/164"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.drumeo.com\/beat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36072"}],"version-history":[{"count":21,"href":"https:\/\/www.drumeo.com\/beat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36072\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":36126,"href":"https:\/\/www.drumeo.com\/beat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36072\/revisions\/36126"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.drumeo.com\/beat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/36140"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.drumeo.com\/beat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36072"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.drumeo.com\/beat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36072"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.drumeo.com\/beat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36072"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}