KGNU’s Natalie Shrewsbury welcomes singer-songwriter Dominick Antonelli to discuss his music and inspirations. He shares his journey, from early memories of listening to music with his parents to finding his unique style. Dominick talks about how he integrates his music with his work in energy healing, including pranic healing, intuitive energy work, and AcuDetox, and the workshops he conducts that combine these practices with his instrumental music (Interview date: 6/13/2024)
Natalie Shrewsbury: All right. I’m really excited to welcome my friend and guest Dominick Antonelli. He is a local singer-songwriter and guitarist from Fort Collins and is often doing gigs along the Front Range and beyond. Dominick, why don’t we get started? Describe the music you just played and the inspiration for creating the instrumental there.
Dominick Antonelli: That song is called “The Art of Realization”. And it was a culmination of just improvising for maybe a year and a half, maybe almost two years of working on that song. I play in alternate tunings and this tuning specifically was a fresh find for me. I was just experimenting with it, sometimes for hours at a time. And that song specifically I was working on for about a year and a half or so.
So it was really just pulling from my life experiences and what was going on internally, mentally, emotionally, and externally over that time period. I think I lived in three or four different places over the course of a year and a half. I know that is a lot, but yeah, a lot of transition time. The song is called “The Art of Realization”, and for me, it is an art: being human and evolving and there’s facts and things that we need to take into account. And there’s a deep artful expression involved as well.
Natalie Shrewsbury: What is your musical journey? What inspired you to become a singer-songwriter? And what or who influenced that?
Dominick Antonelli: Both of my parents are big influences music wise. Some of my earliest memories are listening to the Grateful Dead and Jerry Garcia in my dad’s truck, going to learn how to ride my bike. And so my dad introduced me to the Grateful Dead when I was really young. And I was really into Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd as well. But then it started shifting and changing. I do have some heavy metal influences. I actually really enjoy some of that. And Keller Williams was a really big inspiration in my teens and early twenties. There’s also another guy, his name is Andy McKee. He’s really one of the masters. He’s been around for a while with the modern fingerstyle acoustic and playing very rhythmically and a lot of tapping. I’ve also recently been getting into some lofi music. There’s this guy, he makes all instrumentals. His name is Squeeda. And he’s really been a huge inspiration.
Natalie Shrewsbury: Has he influenced your style right now then with the tapping and the movements?
Dominick Antonelli: Yeah, I would say so. And a bit of the spaciousness and going on a journey, even though that’s been around for most of my playing experience, it’s really deepening lately.
Natalie Shrewsbury: Let’s get into a little bit more music.
Dominick Antonelli: Wonderful.
Natalie Shrewsbury: We heard my guest Dominic Antonelli and a very beautiful tune. I want you to describe a little bit about what you played.
Dominick Antonelli: Thank you. I wrote it a few years back and it was actually about a meeting that I had with a former partner of mine. We met at Garden of the Gods a few years ago and I was just super inspired by the meeting. I ended up writing this song and then I shared it and she came over for dinner and she didn’t leave for a year. But that relationship really has propelled me a lot in my professional career and it introduced me to a lot of the things that I’m doing currently.
Natalie Shrewsbury: So your other life work is also healing energy work. And I was wondering, how do you blend this music with your energy work or how does the energy work impact your music and vice versa?
Dominick Antonelli: Yeah that’s a good question. I do an energy therapy called pranic healing. And I also do intuitive energy work. I also do AcuDetox, which is five needle point ear acupuncture. If you were listening yesterday morning, one of my teachers, Avani Dilger, was in the studio here giving an amazing talk.
So any of the listeners, if you haven’t listened to that, I highly encourage it. I encourage you to check out that on the archive list. The energy work is really important to me and spiritual practice and meditation is also really important. So I’ve been blending – I’ve been doing events with AcuDetox, guided meditation, group energy healing, and instrumental guitar.
And so just bringing all of this together in about an hour and a half, two hour workshop is how I’ve been blending it together. But it’s all energy. What I’m playing is very intuitive. I don’t have music theory knowledge and playing with the alternate tunings really allows me to tap into the energy of what is present within me.
So I do think there’s a lot of overlap with the energy work and the music and it’s just really cool to be able to start bridging them together and create an offering that people are having beautiful experiences with .
Natalie Shrewsbury: Oh, that sounds wonderful. Why don’t we play another tune?
Dominick Antonelli: Okay. Yeah. So this next one is called “Thank You Teacher” and it’s another instrumental. I wrote it for my chronic healing teacher and I’m just so grateful. His name is Master Choa Kok Sui, and I’m so grateful for the work that he’s done and how it’s impacted my life. So this song is written for him.
Natalie Shrewsbury: Thank you so much. That was very soothing.
Dominick Antonelli: Yeah, the first song and this song are some of the ones that I use often in the workshops that I’ve been doing lately. I’ve been really into the instrumental world the last few years and I love it.
Natalie Shrewsbury: Yeah. I can understand that it brings people into a different space. You don’t have to concentrate on words.
Dominick Antonelli: It’s interesting, I really enjoy when people give feedback of what they felt or what they saw. And it’s just so interesting to see the differences as well as the overlaps that people have with their own experience.
Natalie Shrewsbury: What are some upcoming events that people might want to know about?
Dominick Antonelli: Yeah, so right now I’m really focusing on these workshops rather than singer-songwriter events. I do have one singer-songwriter event in Fort Collins coming up on July 6th, at a brewery called the Gilded Goat.
Sometimes I play here in Boulder at Trident and at BOCO Cider. But I have an event coming up this week on Friday. It’s one of the workshops that we were describing earlier with ear acupuncture, pranic healing, meditation and instrumental guitar. And that’s at a place called Source Point Acupuncture in Fort Collins. That’s seven o’clock on Friday. And next Saturday at seven, I’m doing another workshop on releasing resentment. That’s going to be at BeFree Yoga Studio which is also in Fort Collins. I have a couple more of those coming up next month and I’m also going to Carbondale on the 21st of July and there’s a really cool healing arts center there called True Nature. They have this amazing underground kiva, which is a very sacred place with amazing acoustics. And I’m going to be sharing this workshop there. I’m super excited.
Natalie Shrewsbury: Wow. Great. Do you have a platform where people can go to read about that or find out?
Dominick Antonelli: Yeah. I have a Google business page. It’s under Inner Reflection Wellness. That’s my business page and that’s linked to my Facebook and my Instagram as well. But I do have to say, I just recently made it and I have been pretty resistant to the social media piece, but I’m doing my best to be responsible about it.
Natalie Shrewsbury: What is that again? Inner reflection?
Dominick Antonelli: Yeah. Inner Reflection Wellness. If you just type that in on Google, you’ll see a picture of me pop up and it’ll give you some information about my business. And then the events you will be able to find on the Facebook and Instagram.
Natalie Shrewsbury: Excellent. Thank you so much for joining Highway 322 tonight Dominick. And I think we’re going to head on down the highway, play a few more tunes before the top of the hour. Any parting words that you’d like to say?
Dominick Antonelli: I’m just super grateful for you, Natalie. Thank you for inviting me. This is something that I’ve wanted to do since moving to Boulder six years ago, because I used to live here. And now I moved to Fort Collins, but yeah, I’m just super grateful and thank you for having me.
