About Tony Domenick
I’m a musician, teacher, sound engineer, and aspiring philosopher from Denver, Colorado. My first instrument was Alto Saxophone—then my high school band director convinced me to try Trombone, my church choir director convinced me to Sing, and a close friend taught me to play “Take 5” and “für Elise” on the Piano. I also play Ukulele, and i love the different ideas each of these instruments can inspire.
I teach one-on-one music lessons, perform at concerts and events, facilitate community choirs, create music for improv & sketch theatre, and record & mix music, podcasts, and voice over.
I also stream on twitch as Tonic Dominant Music, co-host the podcast Philosophically Sound, and am a co-founder of the collaborative choir Quorum.
Please explore this website, schedule a lesson or recording session, listen to meditative music and audio books, or ask a question by sending me an email (lower left corner of this page).
Breathe. Smile. Listen. Peace.
What is Tonic Dominant?
The tonic note or tonic chord in a piece of music is the one chord (to rule them all), the Do of Do-Re-Mi, the root, the ending place—home. The dominant chord is just one of many ways to drive our ears and expectations towards the tonic.
Just like dark precedes light, sorrow precedes joy, and caterpillars precede butterflies, dominant (frequently) precedes tonic. Composers and song writers play with this expectation, delaying resolution, setting up obvious moves only to immediately surprise listeners and pull us in deeper.
Of course, the same sounds don't excite everybody. Depending on what your ears have absorbed over the course of your life, you may be surprised or delighted by sounds that the listener next to you finds boring or frustrating.
But something that all listeners seem to enjoy is the return home, to tonic. Whether we travel there in a straight line, arrive after a complex series of sonic backflips, or never leave at all, tonic can be a satisfying place to be.
The tonic dominant relationship can feel somewhat restrictive—is it not merely a preference? There are other ways to organize harmonic hierarchy, we could use more than what is thought of as popular, or common.
Finally, Tonic Dominant kind of sounds like my name, Tony Domenick, which was pointed out to me by my fellow musician and close friend, Drew Bradley. I'm grateful to Drew for pointing this out and securing a nerdy name for my musical adventures—later in 2025, you can find my original music on Spotify and other stores under the name Tonic Dominant.
What's with the uncapitalized i?
First of all, if it really bothers you, i'm sorry—i've prioritized my own mental experimentation over your comfort. When i learned how the author, critic, and philosopher bell hooks purposefully does not capitalize her pen name in order to emphasize the importance of her writing as opposed to who she is, i got curious. Eventually i reflected on capitalization rules in general—why capitalize "I," but not "you?" Could this actually be reflective of how self centered behavior is so easy for us humans, while caring for others often takes a bit more effort and intention?
So i began trying it out, and found i really liked the way it felt to diminish the self by diminishing the letter i. Capital letters are, however, very useful for making sentences and words stick out within paragraphs, so i haven't abandoned convention altogether—i will capitalize "i" when it starts a sentence, and even capitalized the instruments i play because i like the way it makes them stick out. If my lack of regard for the 'rules' bothers you, again, i'm sorry.
In music, students are often taught (or inadvertently make for themselves) rules that they feel must be followed, or else their music won't be 'good.' In truth, there aren't rules that govern all of music, only patterns that can be discerned and used to create music that sounds a certain way. You can make rules to guide your own creation of music, and many other people may like your rules and want to use them, but it doesn't make those rules absolute—someone, somewhere will have a different preference and a different set of rules.
So my decapitalizations are merely an invitation to examine why you do what you do, and perhaps explore small, subtle changes that may affect your thinking. Good luck, and have fun!