Phala has enjoyed composing music since she was very young, but she only came to study composition formally in graduate school. She was part of the Performer Composer program at the California Institute of the Arts where she completed her MFA in the spring of 2003. While at Cal Arts, she studied composition with James Tenney and during the summers, she attended Pauline Oliveros' Deep Listening retreats, earning her Deep Listening Certificate in 2002.

The majority of Phala's music is written for harp and voice, which she performs live as often as she can, but she has also written music for voice and piano, voice and chamber ensemble, tap dancer and chamber ensemble, a cappella choir, woodwind trio, string octet, solo percussion, solo piano, solo viola, and her Sacramento-based band, Hell Toupee!