Feature Article   Behind the Music of Dexter Music By: Daniel Licht Reviewed by Melissa Minners               The television series known as Dexter has created quite a stir in the television industry.  An amazingly original series, Dexter stars Michael C. Hall as Dexter Morgan, a forensic bloodstain pattern analyst for the Miami Metro Police Department.  No big deal, right?  Sure, until you learn what he moonlights as.  You see, Dexter works for the police department by day, but he’s a serial killer by night.             An interesting and original television series such as this one deserves an original musical score the likes we could never imagine.  Daniel Licht has been scoring Dexter since its very first season.  After studying jazz, composition and world music in college, Licht moved to New York City where he established himself as a musical artist on the lower east side of Manhattan.  Traveling to Germany, Holland and Northern Europe, Licht performed and composed music for theater and dance companies.  He eventually traveled to Japan and Indonesia to study music there.  His vast experience and studies leant a uniqueness to his musical compositions.             From there he became well-known for his compositions for advertisements for such clients as Mercedes Benz, Sony and AT&T.  Former classmate and composer in his own right, Christopher Young, encouraged Daniel Licht to use his eclectic composition styles in movie scores.  His fist feature film was Children of the Night which garnered him much recognition in the press.  From there came a series of scores for dark films including Children of the Corn II, Hellraiser: Bloodline, Thinner and Bad Moon.             But Licht would not be satisfied with creating music for just one genre and he eventually spread out into comedies and television series, creating the musical scores for Jake in Progress, Oliver Beene, Cashmere Mafia and more.  It was during this time that he received an offer to create a musical score for Showtime’s new drama, Dexter and Licht was quite up to the task.             At the 2010 New York City Horror Film Festival, attendees got the chance to check out a new short entitled Behind the Music of Dexter.  Starring Daniel Licht, the short explained the interesting musical score of Season 5 of Dexter.  For this season, Licht decided to use a number of medical instruments in various ways to create interesting background music for the show.              In my opinion, Daniel Licht should probably have applied for a job at Industrial Light and Magic as a sound expert.  Who would have ever thought to use a scalpel in the manner Licht does to produce musical sounds?  Scraping a bow across it makes one type of screechy, spooky sound, while flicking the other end of the scalpel (in a vise) creates a bass sound.  Other interesting sounds are created through the use of duct tape, surgical saws slicing through bones and melons, chains banged against tables, a variety of scissors and more.  He even plays a musical saw to create some of the more eerie background music.              The Behind the Music of Dexter short is something that every Dexter fan is going to want to get their hands on.  Music is as much a part of the show as the visuals and fans are going to love finding out how that music was created.  Anyone interested in the art of sound effects and out of the ordinary musical scoring is going to be interested in seeing this short as well.  I thank Costa Communications for providing the opportunity to check out this informative video/music short.   For feedback, visit our message board or e-mail the author at talonkarrde@g-pop.net.