Sounds of the Soul

For Chayala, music wasn’t just a hobby; it was a part of her DNA. “My father was a badchan when he was young, way before I was born,” she muses, “but I have some really early memories of him being great with rhyme. My house was pretty musical, so it wasn’t foreign to me when I started composing. My mother encouraged me to pursue every musical opportunity that came my way.”

By the time she was eleven, her fingers danced effortlessly over the piano keys, as she crafted fully formed songs. Chayala knew that someday she’d end up at the piano. “That was like, a given.” As she got into her teen years, she imagined teaching others the beauty of piano, secretly hoping to reach the world with her songs.

Fast forward a few years. While Chayala became a piano teacher and taught music in schools, she simultaneously wrote and recorded her songs.  At that time, her music wasn’t for famous singers but instead tailored for camps and schools, which she recorded in her studio. “The idea of a home studio became popular when I was an older teen, and I got right into it. It was the perfect timing, because that was when camps and schools started to need recorded songs.” She immersed herself in training, learning whatever she could to keep up with the evolving field.

Selling her songs to singers came about organically, around five years ago. “Basically, I did a project for an organization, and Benny Friedman sang the song. When I wrote the song, I didn’t even know he would be singing it! The next thing I know, Mordechai Shapiro reached out, saying, ‘Hey, I heard your song and it’s great. Do you have any more?’”