St. Marys, Ont.'s Emm Gryner reflects on life and career to help others find joy in singing

She's released at least twenty albums, spanning pop, rock, and jazz. She's also played some of the world's biggest stages as part of David Bowie's band and as a solo artist.

But Emm Grynerhas also dealt with various forms of loss -through divorce, the death of loved onesand the shifting sands of the recordingindustry.

After more than 20 years in the music business, Grynerhas a lot to say.

In her debut book, The Healing Power of Singing, the Juno-nominated recording artist shares key moments in her life and career, and offers advice and inspiration to anyone looking to pursue their artistic life.

Here are excerpts from her conversation with Afternoon Drive host Chris dela Torre, edited for breadth and clarity.

You've said that you never set out to write a book, at least not at first. How did this happen?

In 2018, I saw myself in concert with someone I talk about a lot: David Bowie. They had released this concert, Glastonbury 2000 (a live recording of a performanceby Bowie and his band, which included Gryner at the time). Actually, I watched it because I was going to talk about it with you on Afternoon Drive.

Yeah, I remember talking to you about that. You sat down with your Mom to watch it.

That's right. Very reluctantly!Like huffing and puffing, which is the wrong attitude to have. But maybe it's all because of CBC and you that I wrote this book.I felt like I needed to see the concert because it had happened so long ago, and I didn't really remember anything about it. At the time that I sat down to watch it, I was in a dark place: post-divorce, a lot of inner turmoil, and some people close to me had passed away. It was a really hard time. But I saw myself as a 25-year-old in this concert, and it was a wake-up call. It was like, 'you have a voice, and you have not been grateful for it.'

Also around 2018, people started to come to me for singing lessons. So that combination of looking back at my career, and sharing what I've known about singing and what I've learned over the years made me think I should write about this.

You've said that this isn't a memoir. But we do learn about key moments in your life, and you correlate those with practical advice about singing and your music career. It's almost like two books at once, in a way.

Well, I started and stopped this book twice, and I did it when I was very far along, like 50,000 or 60,000 words. It felt crazy to do that, but I just knew that this wasn't going to be a conventional, 'How to Sing' book, and it wasn't going to be a memoir. And that's kind of what my life has been: learning by trial and error andjust trying things out. I wanted the book to fast track people to a place where they have a few light bulbs going off, whether it's about singing or about their artistic life.

People might be surprised to discover how vulnerable you've allowed yourself to be. There's a moment where you're writing about the end of your marriage and facing single motherhood. You write, "my entire body shook as I stood alone in the middle of Springbank Park in London, Ontario. It's a strange feeling to shake uncontrollably in public. But as things had become so suffocating and impossible around me, other humans, their stories in their conversations faded quickly into the periphery of neighbouring trees in the chilly autumn air." How difficult was it to look back on times like that?

I think that's why I eventually settled on being personal in this book because my previous drafts were not. I asked myself, 'amI willing to share the darkest moments with people so that I can illustrate how to come out of that, whether it's by using your voice or using your creativity, or just moving your body or trying to be there for your kids?' I felt like I had to go there, in a way. It's hard to hear it read back to me, because it's not like music. You can cloak your lyrics in strings and drums and things like that, but not in a book.

You attribute a lot of your success to just being open to new experiences. Or, as you put it in the book, "putting yourself in the path of opportunity." You write about how you were able to do that in your early 20s, but what does thatlook like later in life?

That's a great question, and I think a lot of people can relate to this. When you're older, you kind of know what you'll put up with and what you won't. Hopefully, your values are a little bit more informed. So when you decide to put yourself out there, you have more intention. That's why I love getting older, and I always encourage the people that I work with to go for it. If you're 40 or 50 and you still want to do that thing, you're not that old! When you're 80 and you look back on having these waffling feelings about things you wish you did at40 or 50, you're going to be like, 'why didn't I just do it?'

The Healing Power of Singing by Emm Gryner is published by ECW Press.