Michelle Gerlach

DJ Michelle has so many incredible ideas, and her enthusiasm is infectious.

Collaborating with MG is fascinating on many levels. We are building a mutual web of strategies to make sure what is being created is truly hers. While I’m often acting as MG’s hands, it is essential to me that whatever is being created is undoubtedly MG’s choice. For example, I have scant training in music, and MG is interested in music theory, so we have found Youtube videos so that we can learn about this together.

When we discovered “loops” of pre-existing drums and other musical arrangements in Garage Band, we also found a new way where MG’s choice was more her own (compared to me playing some kind of mediocre one-note-at-a-time melody on a computer keyboard and hoping her guess and my guess are aligned). The loops have fascinating names, and as a person that some of my friends have referred as “pastel goth,” I was delighted to find that MG was drawn to some of the spookier names and sounds found in the public domain loop library in the program. Don’t overlook us cheerful types, man. We are into weird stuff!

Every single human, no matter how they communicate, or move their bodies, or interact with the world is a complex tapestry of experiences, ideas, passions and desires.

We have since completed several songs, and have since uploaded them to the Living Studios Youtube page! Since it’s a video page, we had to choose images to go along with the music, and MG was the creative director for these. Together we would search the internet for a suitable image of MG’s choosing, and then in Photoshop I would layer images and MG would choose how they were edited and what filters to apply to make them our own. She also co-designed the layout for the Living Studios Youtube page itself, giving input into how the banner should look and approving the final uploads.

"It’s important to me that this doesn’t all have to be “productive.” I believe art and music can and should be experiential. There are many “frivolous” by-products or experiences on the fringes of every single finished work of art. For example, even if we don’t “use” the space sounds* we downloaded from the NASA website for the music MG creates, what makes us believe that this moment was insignificant? Discovery is an essential part of the creative process, no matter what makes it into the final cut or not.

Whenever we play-back the music we are working on, MG often wrangles together a live-audience from the Living Studios crew, and counts us in with, “a-one, a-two, a-one, two, three, four!” and her face explodes with joy. I am so grateful to collaborate with this amazing person, and can’t wait to see what she wants to make next.

Listen in at Living Studios Youtube channel!

Click this link to see Michelle's latest project!