Deep Dive: Sally Dige – Our Secret

The music of Berlin-based multidisciplinary-audio-visual artist Sally Dige has a musical clarity and emotional resonance that makes it a regular part of our office playlists. Sally was kind enough to give us an insight into the creation of new single Our Secret as part of our ongoing Deep Dive series.

Genesis of Our Secret

I’ve always fantasized about scoring music for film, but convinced myself that my music knowledge wasn’t ‘sophisticated’ and ‘experienced’ enough for that kind of venture.

Then one day I was trying to work on music but was getting nowhere with it and that fantasy rolled back into my mind about writing music for film. I then thought, “what have I got to lose to just try?”, so I selected a film to score, and began to write music for it. It really wasn’t as hard as I made it out to be. It just goes to show that it’s often ourselves holding us back. Sometimes you just gotta go “I’ve got nothing to lose to just try” and do it. At least then you will know.

Instrumentation

I purposely wanted to limit and challenge myself with this song, so for that reason I limited the sound palette to piano and strings with small additional sounds. The piano was intriguing to me because I had never written a piano-driven instrumental before, so this would be my challenge.

The song opens with a repeating, bass piano melody that repeats throughout the song. The main character of the song is the top-line piano that enters slow and cautious, but as the song progresses, so does its melodies, which dances higher up the octaves and with greater speed for the more urgent parts. I imagined this top-line piano like a character going through the ups and downs of its own story.

When the heavier moments kick in, so do the strings and e-bass. The e-bass is subtle, but helps to push more weight into those ‘chorus’ moments. At the climax of the song, I added a few plucks of a zitter for a surprise sound that would be shiny and bright but also not overly dominating.

Recording Our Secret

When I was writing the song, I would watch the opening scenes of the film Medea by Lars von Trier, and jam a bunch of melody ideas that corresponded to those scenes.

I had lots of recorded takes with various, random melody ideas. I went through the many takes of ideas and looked for the main hook that would anchor the song, as well as the melodies that could dance in and out as part of the building narrative.

Because I am used to writing songs in the pop/rock form with verses and choruses, I had become reliant on words to determine the structure, peak and meaning of a song. Without words, it was very abstract to me, and I was unsure how to narrate in this way.

I had to write on a piece of paper what would be the structure of this piano song. I needed to visualize how the opening hook would build and weave throughout the song, and how I could create the song with builds, peaks, dips and climax.

Once I was able to visualize on paper the song structure, I went through all the takes of recorded melody ideas and began filtering it down to the best parts. I then needed to arrange these random ideas together so that it sounded cohesive and fluid like one line of thought. This part took me the longest.

Once the piano arrangement was complete, then I wrote the rest of the instrumentation. Once that was done, I went back to play and record all the parts as best as I could.

For the strings, I recorded them using software strings, but I wanted to have some live strings on the song. My friend Martha Rose plays the violin, so I sent her the files and she performed and recorded the violin herself and then sent the files back to me. The violin parts she played were simple, but I think it adds a lot. There are still the software strings in the song. I think the software strings add a directness, whereas the live strings add the soul, which works well when they blend together.

Where does Our Secret sit within your overall sound?

I suppose if someone were to discover my music and listen to my older songs like Doppelgänger, then listen to my newest song Our Secret that it might seem confusing how both songs could be from the same artist. For me though, it makes sense because I know the creative journey I have been on, and I see where I am going.

Right now, Our Secret stands out because it is very stripped down and with piano (an instrument I haven’t incorporated into my sound yet) compared to my overall sound which has been very dense, layered, with vocals and mostly with synthesizers. Our Secret may not make sense in my overall sound right now, but my upcoming songs are with piano, strings and vocals, so with the final album, it will all come together in the end.

Our Secret is out now via Sally Dige’s own label, Dige Records. The track – along with the artist’s back catalogue – can also be streamed on Apple Music and YouTube Music. For more listening options, check out their Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram pages. You can support Sally Dige directly by checking out their Patreon page.