“Dracula”
and other music by Lindsay Holliday

"Music is eerily seductive" -  Macon Telegraph 

1. - Overture – Crashing thunder, howling hounds, bats and a demonically keyboarded pipe organ. 

2- Variation of “Courtney’s Violin”- remembering the old sorrow, the lost connections, forgotten tribulations.  Quite a contrast from “Courtney’s New Violin” – which was inspired by the sounds of our next door neighbor C. Salter – a 4th grader who was one year older than Faira.  Courtney brought home her school violin to practice.  She repeatedly practiced bowing the open strings – the 4 notes of which I used as the basis of this invention.  I later learned that her violin was mistuned(?) – and the intervals of her open strings were not conventional for the violin.

3- Lucy’s Bedroom – Pensive, where we first feel the predatory habits of Dracula on the prowl.  Influenced by Ennio Morricone’s work for the ‘spaghetti-westerns’ which stared Clint Eastwood.

4- Unholy Union – an allusion to a variation of the ‘Wedding March’.  Dracula’s bite infects and slowly enslaves for him a ‘wife’.

5- Opening Harker’s Journal  - by Mina who swore she would not read it until after “he was gone”.  The horrors which Harker survived.  Nightmarish memories repressed to save his sanity. 

6- Anxiety begins and builds.

7- The voice of Dracula appears to Renfield in his prison cell.  Renfield who has tried to resist Dracula is spiritually overpowered and is forced to allow Dracula into the Sanitarium as Dracula demands “Bid Me Enter”.

8- Shut all the doors – Dracula traps Harker who was attempting to escape the castle and warn others of the dark evil brewing in Transylvania..

9- Neck Bite – played during said activity.    

10 – Thunder – played during various scene changes.

11- Mina’s Transformation – Lucy has already died – actually she is now one of the undead.  Now Mina has fallen prey to the poisons in the vampire’s bite.  Over a few days she begins to loose strength and have horrible, vivid, frightening dreams.  Eventually her new personality begins to crave –– dark things of the night, and she begins to assist Dracula’s efforts to complete her transformation into the bride of Dracula.

12 – Harker’s Melancholy – a simple, elegantly fitting variation of Mike Pinder’s “Melancholy Man” [Moody Blues].  Harker suffers months of depression [cause is unknown to the others] following his escape from the Lair of Dracula.  

13- Stalking the Night – A midnight raid and reconnaissance at the cemetery tombs of suspected vampires – the revelation of Lucy as the “eater of children”…

14- End, Resolution? Absolution?  Mina, her old self again, now drives the stake through Dracula’s heart.  She does this with a voiced sympathy and pity for the bloodthirsty creature of Dracula who had no more choice over his existence than a lion who must eat red meat in order to survive.   Dracula’s last soft gasp is “Mina..” projecting  a love, affection and appreciation for being freed of his horrible condition.  Almost as if – poised for a moment on the edge of Life, Death and Eternity, he sees that he is now cleansed and “saved”. 

END

15 – Arsenic and Old Lace – Overture – played at Theatre Macon Feb 1997.   Starts with a serious, ominous, dark tabliture.  Segue into a synthesis and parody of many modern “horror themes” from TV’s “Mystery Theater [PBS]”,  “The Twilight Zone”,   “Munsters”, and classical favorite “From the Hall of the Mountain King” by Grieg, and the movie “Psycho”.

16- “Don’t Leave Me” – from Approaching Zanzibar, Feb, 1995.  Two kids are left alone in the woods at night.  They begin to imagine “Lions and Tigers and Bears” etc., but there is no real harm there.  They bravely exit their tent and behold a wondrous ceiling of stars, planets and meteors. 

17 “The Island of Cloves” was the quintessential description of Zanzibar [off the East African Coast] for generations.

18 - Overture for Approaching Zanzibar – The Steam Locomotive here is a metaphor for the journey of: 1- a family’s summer vacation across America in a cramped automobile, and 2- the Irresistible and unstoppable journey of our lives through time.   Locomotion segues into the boring and stupefying “99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall” which is the song our actors are singing as the play opens in Scene 1.  The allusion to “Davie Crocket – King of the Wild Frontier” [60’s TV] is a [n only] half-serious musical joke.  Voice is Jim Crisp, at a Sunday picnic in historic Rose Hill Cemetery, emphatically projecting this persona across  a valley, over the quiet stones marking the mute audience of the deceased.  Spirits whose worldly journeys are over. 

19- Billy Bud Overture – November 1996 - an adapted and improved version of my overture for "For our Country's Good" at Theatre Macon [May 1993] Uses a traditional motif from the Boswain's whistle and the childhood icon tune "Sailing, Sailing".    All these ideas were first explored during “On From Cadiz” 1992.  This story deals with the incredibly evil behavior of a Mr.  Claggart who sets a mantrap for the beautiful spirit of our fair Billy boy. 

20. – Claggart – Projects the same type of evil unforgiving resentment exhibited by Herman Melville’s other great villain –Moby Dick.  Pounding of a deeply hateful heart.  Mix with the “Sunken Cathedral” of Debusy.  Mix with the unknown songs distant leviathans.  Mixed with the steel drums of the Caribbean.  Shake, stir, and ignite with the hot fire of jealous passion.  

21 – End. The ascention of Bud up the ropes to his execution.  Reprise of “Fire At Will” which was used at end of Act 1, beginning of intermission.  1812 overture is referenced.  

22 – from Marvin’s Room 1993 hypnotic alpha, delta and theta waves of a catatonic Altzhiemers victim.  Bedridden lost in a trance, staring at the same wall. Wall clock.  Clock pendulum - swings - rythm - tick - tick - tick - tck - ti - c - k -  -    -       - 

23 – Interlude – at last something Light.  No evil meaning here. Relax and enjoy.

24 – a slow variation of “Open Your Heart”  written for the 1994 fundraising video for United Way of Middle GA. 

25 – Trip’s Tune – though he disowns it… says I remembered his cords and tempo wrong.  I’m sure he is right.  But this is my tribute to him – a great guitarist, musician and friend.  And thanks for the inspiration too. 

26 – Walking [Bass] to 4 beats in the key of C.  We used to jam to these cords.  During one jam, the theme to “MASH” visited from a tangential [parallel, musical] universe.  Celebrate the synthesis. Walk together for a while.   Shake a hand.   See you later ..

All @ Lindsay Holliday 1992 - 2008  Macon, GA  (478) 742.8699  www.HollidayDental.com

Sounds - Roland Sound Canvass sequenced with Cakewalk Pro, version 3   

Poster artwork by Craig Hamilton