Voice lessons

[S. Lisa Smith]

I have wanted to take my CDing to another level for a while. I have done the voice tape by Melanie Phillips, but I really couldn't keep my voice femme all day (or even for an hour). I decided that my voice was going to be my next task.

I tried to contact Danae Doyle who is famous for helping CDs and TSs become more feminine. She had advertised a telephone voice class, but never answered my emails. I then decided to see if I could get voice lessons near, but not too near Tidewater Virginia where I live. I found a voice coach not too far away in Yorktown, Virginia. I had my first lesson today. It was amazing!

I had a 45 minute lesson today. We talked about what I wanted to accomplish and then she tried out my range. I was amazed to find that I actually could sing and talk in a higher range and I feel that I have made some progress. She gave me a bunch of exercises to do and we will have another lesson next week. It was really fun! I spoke and sang along to her piano. I could tell that she had a good time also. She thinks that one or two more lessons may get me to where I want to be (if I do my part). I'm thinking maybe a few more than that. More reports later...oh yes, she wanted to see some pictures of me dressed and they are in the pictures part of the forum. She said I looked great!

[LeannL]

Cool. Let us know how it turns out and enjoy :)

Leann

[JohnH]

Lisa,

What is your natural voice type as a male - tenor, baritone, or bass? Obviously a tenor would have the easiest time getting a femme voice.

John

[Donna June]

That sounds encouraging for those of us who want to do the same, thanks

[StaceyJane]

Sounds like wonderful fun!

[S. Lisa Smith]

I'm baritone towards bass.

[JohnH]

Lisa,

You have your work cut out for you with your deep voice.

I am a basso profundo - I can sing down to Bb below the bass staff so I would really have a tough time passing!

John

[Rinoah06]

I have also been curious about this. I feel it's a must if u are going out. I'm a tenor

[Jenna Lynne]

I'm baritone towards bass.
This is not ideal, of course ... but pitch range has less to do with it than you might think. Bea Arthur had a deep voice, and I doubt many people hearing her assumed she was a man. Even if you're a low baritone, you can probably edge up toward Middle C without straining. If you can get into that range, you're well within the lower end of the female norm.

More important than absolute pitch is pitch inflection -- letting the voice rise and fall. Men tend to talk more in a monotone. They will push certain words louder for emphasis. Women start with more pitch variation, and their voices rise in pitch for emphasis.

This summer I wrote a blog entry of voice tips. You can find it here: http://jennawillow.wordpress.com/2010/06/23/other-voices/. One tip I picked up recently on YouTube was, hydrate! Drink plenty of water so your vocal cords don't dry out. And instead of coughing (which male lions do, I believe) when your throat is scratchy, learn to swallow.

There are several good TG voice tips videos on YouTube. (Search for transgender, not crossdresser. The crossdresser videos are ... well, I won't criticize, I'll just say I see no reason to watch any more of them.)

P.S.: That, by the way, is an example of feminine voice in print. As a guy, I'd probably whip out a few choice adjectives or a rude metaphor to describe the CD videos. As a woman, I'm more polite and considerate of others' feelings.

[JohnH]

I don't have any problems edging up to middle C. I guess I would strive to have a pitch no lower than E below middle C, which I could do. I could practice the speech patterns of women without raising my pitch for a lot longer period of time.

John

[S. Lisa Smith]

This is not ideal, of course ... but pitch range has less to do with it than you might think. Bea Arthur had a deep voice, and I doubt many people hearing her assumed she was a man. Even if you're a low baritone, you can probably edge up toward Middle C without straining. If you can get into that range, you're well within the lower end of the female norm.

She actually has me a bit higher than that.

More important than absolute pitch is pitch inflection -- letting the voice rise and fall. Men tend to talk more in a monotone. They will push certain words louder for emphasis. Women start with more pitch variation, and their voices rise in pitch for emphasis. That is exactly what she is trying to get me to do.

This summer I wrote a blog entry of voice tips. You can find it here: http://jennawillow.wordpress.com/2010/06/23/other-voices/. One tip I picked up recently on YouTube was, hydrate! Drink plenty of water so your vocal cords don't dry out. And instead of coughing (which male lions do, I believe) when your throat is scratchy, learn to swallow. Again, she made that exactly that point. Before we started she brought me a glass of room temperature water to use during the lesson.

There are several good TG voice tips videos on YouTube. (Search for transgender, not crossdresser. The crossdresser videos are ... well, I won't criticize, I'll just say I see no reason to watch any more of them.) I saw some of them. They were helpful, but I really wanted real time live feedback, so I sought out a voice coach. (Her voice is wonderful, by the way.)

P.S.: That, by the way, is an example of feminine voice in print. As a guy, I'd probably whip out a few choice adjectives or a rude metaphor to describe the CD videos. As a woman, I'm more polite and considerate of others' feelings.

You sound like you have had quite a bit of voice training. Part of my problem is that I had an OK femme voice, but I couldn't keep it up for more than about 10 minutes and while I knew that I had to vary the pitch, I didn't know how to do it. She is teaching me how to do vary the pitch and has already given me exercises to improve the strength of my femme voice. She has worked with female radio personalities and is looking at me as a challenge. As I said, it is really fun!

[Jenna Lynne]

My voice gets scratchy if I talk a lot whether I'm in boy mode or girl mode. It happens sooner in girl mode, though, so I know I need to relax better. Right now I'm working on being able to slide smoothly in and out of falsetto. You don't want to stay in falsetto! But if you go there to emphasize one word and then slide back down, I think it can sound okay.

If you need software to record your voice into your computer, try Audacity. It's free, it's cross-platform, and it works great even with a built-in mic.

Also ... no, I've never had any voice training, but I'm a musician (as you can probably tell from my photo), so I know how to listen. And I did plays in high school and college, so I know how to play a part. I like doing accents -- British, German, Yiddish, redneck, and more. So playing with my feminine voice is not a weird, foreign place for me.

[jamey]

This is quite interesting. Definitely try Jenna's suggestion and record a few samples for us if you feel comfortable doing that. I would love to hear the difference.

[Melissa_Z]

Cool to hear and good thread.

I just re-re-started trying to practice voice. It is my trans* equivalent of going to the gym . . . I start out strong, then wind up letting my membership go unused for the rest of the year :) Clearly voice is a practice thing that requires regular , sustained attention. How long have you practiced with the Melanie Phillips techniques and how happy were you with the results?

Good luck with your future lessons!

[Jay Cee]

Congrats, Lisa, on finding a voice coach. I hope you'll let us know how it goes in the future.

I'm going to have to check out those links when I have more time. I'm somewhere in the bass range, but can do a fairly good mimic of certain female singers (ie: Dido). Tends to have me thinking that if I can sing like a woman, I should be able to talk like one. Here's hoping.

[Sue Too]

Congratulations on starting your voice training. I've been thinking of doing the same thing. Could you share the cost of this type of training. I know it will be different where I am but it would give me some idea of the range. Good luck to you!

Susan in Phoenix

[insearchofme]

Good for you Lisa. Too bad we can't hear the final result.

[JohnH]

It would be ideal if one could attach a .wav or .mp3 file so we could hear the final results.

John

[Jenna Lynne]

It would be ideal if one could attach a .wav or .mp3 file so we could hear the final results.
If you want to do this, I suggest setting up a channel on SoundCloud. It's free. I may even do it later today, after I record one or two samples of where my voice is today. Then others who want to share their voice work could send me mp3s as email attachments and I could upload them. I'm not sure crossdressers.com allows email addresses to be published, but they let me mention my blog, so I could put a link to my Jenna email at gmail on the blog. That would work.

This might be a really fun project! Thanks for suggesting it. I'll keep you posted.

[S. Lisa Smith]

If you want to do this, I suggest setting up a channel on SoundCloud. It's free. I may even do it later today, after I record one or two samples of where my voice is today. Then others who want to share their voice work could send me mp3s as email attachments and I could upload them. I'm not sure crossdressers.com allows email addresses to be published, but they let me mention my blog, so I could put a link to my Jenna email at gmail on the blog. That would work.

This might be a really fun project! Thanks for suggesting it. I'll keep you posted.

Cool, let's try it! I am really getting into this, and it's only my first day of practice.

[Suzette Muguet de Mai]

I can achieve a female voice sometimes recording it and checking it on playback. Trouble is I forget how I achieved it then go through the whole process again till I find it, record it and playback. Then I forget how I got there again. There are lots of things to remember and easily forgotten. Maybe I am getting short term memory loss, just need to practice. Keep us up to date with your progress Lisa.

[SaraRider]

What are some of the exercises she is having you do maybe I should start practicing everyday.

[spotlessMind]

Yeah, PLEASE post some samples of your voice before/after. This is one of my biggest concerns about passability since I have a very low voice naturally =(

[Janet Bern]

Are there any voice teachers in NJ?

[ClaireB]

i Would love to try voice coaching, but i am finding it hard to do so especially with college coming up

[Katesback]

I got this vision of seeing some trans person carrying around a bottle of oxygen but instead really was helium with a flow just right to keep that high pitched voice.

[S. Lisa Smith]

Here is a link to Melainie Phillips site: http://heartcorps.com/journeys/voice.htm I found her tape to be valuable when I started years ago. In fact, if I can find it, it's a VHS tape, I will send it to the first person who PMs me with their address. Anyway, the way I found Ellen was using Google. There were a few teachers in my city and the next one over, but I wanted to put a little distance between where I hang out and where I got lessons. My teacher is about 45 minutes away. She was interested in helping me when I called and she came recommended, so I went for it. She had never worked with a CD or a TS, but she had worked with many women singers and also women announcers. For me, I really like the real time feedback and it was only $25 a half hour. She thinks that I should need only one or two more lessons, so it's worth it to me.

[S. Lisa Smith]

Had my second voice lesson! My voice is getting better, both in pitch and variation. My voice strength has improved and I'm very pleased!! I spoke in my Lisa voice the whole lesson for about 45 minutes. My throat is sore today, but I'm really pleased and confident that I will improve over time. Next lesson is 1/9.

[Angel.Marie76]

I've had great success with my voice therapy so far. I've had about, oh, 8 lessons or so, over the internet via Skype. My Speech Therapist also works with people wanting a more feminine voice pattern.

One of the things have been finding extremely helpful is to have a mnemonic device and working continuously on being self-aware. I've been using PFAM (Pitch Flow Articulation Maintain - repeat that statement time and time again, adjusting your voice AS you do it) when I forget to bring my voice up or keep it up, which then reminds me of the other things that are just as important -- Breathyness in Consonants (and make sure you make a point of exaggerating the breath of 'eathy' and 'coooohhhhhhonsonants') and, of course intonation and SLOW DOWN! Just on the John Tesh show last night ;) he said that women generally speak and absorb at about 160 words per minute, where men can talk and absorb at upwards to 600 WPM!!

I've already had people tell me that my voice, at times when I'm being extremely mindful, falls into a rhythm that has become indistinguishable from an average GG's.. practice, Practice, and PRACTICE!!

Best of Luck!

[Katie4ever]

Do you have contact details for your Skype voice therapist that you might be able to PM me Angel? What sort of price does he/she charge?

Thanks!

[silhouette]

Here is a link to Melainie Phillips site: http://heartcorps.com/journeys/voice.htm I found her tape to be valuable when I started years ago.

I checked out her site and I came away feeling extremely skeptical..
She takes hormones, and claims she can still do her male voice but "doesn't want to" lol.

I've heard that same terrible lie out of the mouth of 8 year olds :) yeah I can turn invisible, I just don't want to right now!
so she won't do it and we're just supposed to trust her that it's not the hormones altering her voice.. and then she asks for money.. riiiight

Also that talk about "getting stuck" in a female voice mode the first time she tried it, and not being able to talk like a guy anymore?
That sounds like a load of junk! Yes suddenly she forgot how to talk the way she has been talking for her entire life and it took her an hour to revert back..

Excuse me while I roll my eyes :)
Still could be some valuable stuff i suppose, I haven't purcahsed her tape

[cindym5_04]

I think if I worked at it really hard, I could pull off a somewhat girly voice. I do pretty well with various impressions, so i know I can get some range going. While Bea Arthur was a good example, another pretty good example may be Pink. She has a little deeper and raspier voice than a lot of people may consider "feminine".

[suchacutie]

I've got a two octave "normal" range from D below the base staff. I've found that shutting off the bass resonance in the vocal column is not very hard, and the voice that's left is higher and considerably feminine. The "real" problem for me was what to do with that voice. In male mode we use that bass resonant column for a LOT of inflection. Take it away and suddenly it's necessary to listen to women speak, and to realize that they use their voices differently to get that inflection. To me, this inflection problem has been the real battle.

tina

[S. Lisa Smith]

We have a winner for the Melanie Phillips tape. Celtic-Blue-Eyes was first. Congratulations!