Songstress Combines Music and Therapy
By M. SCOTT BORTOT
Singer Gaida is also a composer, voice coach and speech therapist.
American singer Gaida is all about the voice. Not just her voice, but helping others to find their voices as well.
Born in Germany and raised in Syria, Gaida is a New Yorker, and it shows in her music. A rave review in Time Out New York said her debut album, “Levantine Indulgence,” is “a song sequence of alluring beauty, is steeped in the traditional music of her Syrian heritage, but also shows the eclectic worldview of a New York singer-songwriter.”
Gaida, who in 2006 began performing professionally in New York City, caught the ear of Oscar-winning director Jonathan Demme. Gaida and her ensemble recorded music for his 2007 documentary “Jimmy Carter: Man from Plains.” She also sang for Demme’s 2008 film “Rachel Getting Married” and appears in a few scenes.
Gaida and her band improvised music for scenes in “Man from Plains.” “We went to the studio without any preparation,” Gaida says. “Jonathan Demme would show us footage from the film in the control room, then ask us to go to the recording room and play what we feel about the scene, or we improvise along the music that we heard for the first time.”
While in the studio, she listened to Alejandro Escovedo and his band playing “By Eleven,” one of the songs in the movie. “I was inspired enough to come up with a verse with Arabic lyrics and complementary melody,” Gaida says. For the Gillian Welch song “Look at Miss Ohio,” she says she was “inspired to sing parts of the Syrian folk song ‘Almaya’ for one of the verses. The amazing part [was] that it worked. You can hear both songs on the soundtrack of the film.”
Film work aside, much of Gaida’s music stems from everyday experiences. “Bint Elbalad,” the final track of “Levantine Indulgence,” is inspired by the women of Damascus.
“Syrian women are very beautiful and powerful,” Gaida says. “They are hard working, highly educated and brave and yet continue to be tender, loving and genuine.”
While “Bint Elbalad” highlights the Arabic music influence on the album, “Illak Shi” underscores how musicians such as American jazz legend Ella Fitzgerald have affected Gaida.
To complement her vocal talent, Gaida searched intensely for the right musicians. Gaida, who composes and writes lyrics, says it is easy to locate musicians in New York because of the vibrant Arabic music scene, but finding the right ones takes time. Those who show the most creativity join her ensemble.
“The main thing for me is that the musician is able to improvise in any situation,” she says. “A lot of times I take away the music sheets. They may not like it, but I know they can do without it.”
Apparently, music is in her genes. Gaida says her mother’s singing voice is “one of the most beautiful,” and her grandfather sang and played the qanun at home. It doesn’t take long for the music to start at family gatherings in Damascus.
“All of a sudden you start hearing music, [and there is] dancing and clapping and singing,” Gaida says. “It has always been a very musical family.”
Even as a toddler, Gaida wanted to be a singer. Growing up in Damascus, she would listen to Fairuz’s enchanting voice daily on the morning radio. Despite her yearnings to be a singer, her father had different plans. A caring parent, Gaida’s father saw a stable future for her as a doctor, not an artist. Gaida chose Michigan’s Wayne State University, where she studied biological sciences.
At Wayne State, Gaida couldn’t contain what she calls her music “itch” and enrolled in music courses. “My father had no problem with me studying music and singing in classes,” Gaida says.
After graduation, she stayed in Michigan and worked in public health at the Arab Community Center for Economic and Social Services while singing occasionally with local bands. In 2001, Gaida relocated to New York to pursue a career as a biology teacher.
During the teaching certification process, she took a job with a state-run program that provides health services for newborns to 3-year-olds. With the ability to speak Arabic and English fluently, Gaida served as an interpreter between speech pathologists and other health services providers and the Arabic-speaking children and their families.
“I saw how those children are struggling with speech pathologists who don’t speak their language,” Gaida says. Even with interpretation, most children were not connecting well to their therapists, and mothers felt isolated because materials and therapeutic homework were in English.
The children’s struggle touched Gaida so much that she decided to pursue a career in speech and language pathology and studied at Columbia University’s Teachers College. Today, Gaida is the director of speech pathology for a New York City rehab center where she helps adults with voice, speech and language impairments while continuing to work with children in the early intervention program.
Gaida also coaches professional singers on how to treat their voices. “As a singer, it is so much fun to provide voice therapy,” Gaida says. “Being a speech pathologist also helped me understand better my own singing voice and how to use it and take care of it.”
Singing satisfies an innate desire to express her emotions. Gaida says she feels compassion for those who suffer and expresses this by singing. Performing live is where she feels most at home.
“It is the only place where I am not awkward. The only place where I am 100 percent comfortable is when I stand on the stage,” she says. “It is my place. It is where I should be.”
In a review of a concert marking the release of “Levantine Indulgence” at Manhattan’s Le Poisson Rouge, Time Out New York said, “Few singers in New York or the world-music scene are as effusive or charming as Syrian songstress Gaida,” and “Given the outpouring of love from the [Le] Poisson Rouge audience, we suspect we’re not alone in our opinion.”
Gaida says she will keep writing music for movie scenes and for self-expression and eventually might write enough for another album. Meanwhile, Gaida will continue enchanting audiences with her blend of Arab- and American-influenced music.
“I call my music New York Arabic music,” Gaida says. “It is like me: I am an Arab New Yorker.”
M. Scott Bortot is a staff writer with America.gov.
