The numbers are stupefying, even to David Tolk. Make that especially to David Tolk.
- To date, 750 million people have streamed his songs on Spotify, Apple, Amazon, Pandora, YouTube and the various other platforms that send music out into the universe.
- On top of that, on Instagram, where his music can be heard accompanying, at last count, 281,000 reels, his songs have been listened to well over one billion times.
- When he released his Christmas album “Noel” this month, the day it came out it was already streaming in 180 countries.
And yet he is a totally independent musician who rarely even leaves Utah.
So what’s going on? How is it that a keyboard artist in Draper with a studio that doubles as his front room is being heard literally around the world? On a daily basis? When many people don’t even know his name?
“Well, basically,” David explains, “it’s because the way of obtaining music just exploded.”
Put another way: it’s much easier to go viral these days.
You don’t have to have a record label, you don’t have to have a manager, or a producer, or a PR guy. All you need is a distributor that delivers your music to Alexa and Siri and all the other streamers and social media sites out there. And if — and this is an important if — people like what they hear, well, the sky is no longer the limit. Anytime, day or night, someone’s going to be listening somewhere. And you’re getting a fraction of a penny every time they do.
None of this happens, David will be the first to tell you, if he hadn’t inherited his mother’s genes.
Marilyn Tolk was a Juilliard School-trained concert pianist renowned for her perfect pitch and ability to play by ear. She and Norman Tolk, David’s dad, raised David and his four siblings in Nashville, where Norman was a physics professor at Vanderbilt University.
For his first 25 years on Earth, David wanted to use the talent he inherited to become a rock star. His influences growing up were Rush, Styx, Journey and Boston, among others. He had an Eddie Van Halen poster on his bedroom wall. When he left Nashville to attend BYU he joined a rock band.
But as much as he loved music, he also loved being able to pay the rent. After getting his bachelor’s degree he was accepted into law school at the University of Utah.
“I was going to be a grownup and not do music anymore,” remembers David.
But then, fortuitously, an up and coming folk singer named Peter Breinholt needed a keyboard player. As it happened, Breinholt worked with David’s wife, Lisa. She said something along the lines of “Oh, my husband plays piano,” made the introduction, and the rest is local music history. More than three decades later, the two still perform together. (They’re doing their Christmas show at the Rose Wagner Theater this month).
“Peter was really instrumental in helping me continue to do the thing that I love,” says David.
It was at Breinholt’s urging that David recorded his first album, “Mendham,” released in 1996, the same year he graduated from law school.
He sold the CD at a Barnes & Noble bookstore, playing his keyboard in an attempt to draw attention.
“I would hope they’d turn down the overhead music enough so that people could hear me and somebody, you know, an aisle or two over, might be interested enough to come over and buy one.”
Sales were not what you’d call brisk.
In sharp contrast to what was coming.
While keeping his day job, David kept recording. In 2010 he released his first Christmas album, “David Tolk Christmas.” On Christmas week the phone rang in his law office. The caller said he was from Billboard magazine and wanted to let David know that his album had made the top 10 for new age music.
David’s first thought was that one of his law partners was pranking him.
But he went to the Billboard website, and there, sure enough, was his name, alongside artists like Enya and George Winston and Jim Brickman, “these people that I idolize.”
That was the start of the explosion.
By 2017 streaming had found its stride, and so had David. It turned out, people adored the music coming out of what he calls on his website (davidtolk.com) his “peaceful piano.”
“I create instrumental music designed to help people feel peace,” he says. “It’s not a soundtrack from a movie. I’m creating a score that people can use for whatever purpose they want.”
It’s the kind of soothing, relaxing music suitable for playing in the background, over and over and over.
His song, “In Reverence,” has been streamed more than 100 million times. “Pray” is in the 20 million range. “Grace” is close to that and climbing fast.
David knows these numbers because the apps on his smartphone tell him instantaneously how many of his songs are being streamed, and where and when. At any given time, he can see exactly how many people are listening in Australia, in Zimbabwe, and everywhere in between.
A few years ago, the music royalties that show up weekly in his bank account overtook what he was making at the law firm.
You can probably guess what came next.
This past August, he bid adieu to his partners at Richards Brandt, the law firm where he’s spent the last 22 years.
“They’re friends, I’ll miss them,” says David, “but holding down two jobs isn’t easy. I feel like this makes it more possible for me to accomplish what I want to with music.
“What’s happened is something I never could have imagined. Even 15 years ago, I was getting physical (royalty) checks in the mail — and they were little checks.”
Now, the numbers — and the royalties — just keep growing. This year’s streaming rate is up 40% from last year. “On the current trajectory, it’ll be at a billion (streams) in less than two years,” says David, “which just blows my mind. To be in hundreds of countries is overwhelming. It helps that there is no language barrier. No matter what language they speak, they can speak piano.”