Dan Binstock is a lifelong MoCo resident. The Potomac dad is now also a viral TikTok sensation, earning over 340K followers and nearly 30 million views in less than a month with his ability to hear a song just once and recreate it to near perfection on the piano.
Binstock was born and raised in Potomac. He started playing piano at the age of 5, when he realized he had an ear for music. After taking lessons growing up and continuing to play while he was a student at Wootton High School, where he was known for his piano-playing ability, he went in a different direction with his career, earning his law degree and currently owning and operating a company that recruits lawyers.
When the pandemic hit and everyone was stuck inside… “it just sort of happened” Binstock told us. One day he decided to do a Facebook live, taking requests from people, and playing as many songs as he could. “If I’ve heard it, I would play it. If I haven’t, I can listen to it on the spot just once, and then play it.”
In the days following the initial Facebook Live performance, he was inundated with requests for parties, fundraisers, business holiday parties, and more, all via Zoom. That led to Binstock starting his evening passion project, Virtual Piano Party, where he has been hosting piano parties on Zoom since December of 2020 until now, having successfully provided entertainment for over 150 events all over the world.
One of his friends kept telling him he should get on TikTok, a video-focused social networking service that hosts a variety of short-form user videos, from genres like music, pranks, stunts, tricks, jokes, dance, and entertainment. After initially thinking it was for teenagers, he quickly realized how many people were interested in his videos. One of his videos that includes his daughter attempting to stump him by letting him hear part of Lil Nas X’s “Industry Baby” has been viewed over 20 million times in just over a week.
@pianodaddan @lilnasx my dad playing “INDUSTRY BABY” by ear #piano #pianodaddan #fyp #pianochallenge #yerawizard
Dan was amazed at how quickly his following grew. His daughters were initially a little embarrassed and didn’t want him on TikTok. Now he gets texts from school with updates on the latest numbers on social media. “A really fun, new way of bonding” Binstock said.
His New Year’s resolution is to focus on posting music videos rather than watching the news and Netflix. So far, it has worked. His TikTok, @PianoDadDan, now has over 343,000 followers and 3.5 million likes. His most viral video has been viewed for over 162,000 hours. He told us he started doing this because he has always loved to make people happy through music. Growing up, one of his favorite things to do was to take requests and put smiles on faces, something he told us he plans to continue doing through his social media accounts.
Dan and his tunes can also be found on Instagram, @VirtualPianoParty
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