♪♫ Voice Training ♫♪

[*Kira*]

I've become very self-aware that my voice isn't matching my wardrobe.

I went to work in a [very tasteful though obvious] female shirt, cardigan, and tight [male] jeans. My makeup looked fabulous, and I totally worked the eyeshadow, eyeliner, and mascara!

MY POINT IS: Despite being completely confident and proud of my appearance, my male voice soooo doesn't match my looks.

Resources? Advice? Ideas? Feedback? :daydreaming:

[Melody Moore]

I have a Deep Stealth Training DVD which helps a lot - http://www.deepstealth.com/

but you can also find more information & resources at: http://www.tsroadmap.com/voice/transsexual-voice.html
and http://www.lauras-playground.com/voice_link.htm

[Megan_Ashley]

The method I used was the Melanie Anne Phillips CD, I imagine she's probably still selling it online. I had a long commute, so I brought a micro-cassette recorder with me and would go back between the CD excercises and listening to my progress. It took awhile, but I think it was well worth it.

[Katesback]

I like to use this analogy. If I took a gun and held it to your head and told you to talk like a girl or else............ you would. Thats because you life is on the line.

The point of that is that I feel one need to have that mind set if they are going to be successful. Also another aspect of this is that when you are living a life of boy and girl back and forth it really does not work well. You have to be a girl 100% of the time. Perhaps thats why virtually no CDs ever have a decent voice. Its because the voice is not imperrative for survival and finally they can always go back to being a boy.

[Jay Cee]

From what I understand, folks generally have two sets of vocal chords. The upper ones are higher pitched, so try to focus on using them.

And I don't believe you need a life threatening experience to talk like a lady. Just a lot of practice.

[Sophora]

From what I understand, folks generally have two sets of vocal chords. The upper ones are higher pitched, so try to focus on using them.

And I don't believe you need a life threatening experience to talk like a lady. Just a lot of practice.

You actually don't want to be using the upper ones as strange as it seems. And Pitch actually has little to do with sounding feminine, you want resonance which in the lower vocal chords(the is only half an octave difference between male and female pitch). Once you have resonance, that pitch will come naturally.

[Frances]

I like to use this analogy. If I took a gun and held it to your head and told you to talk like a girl or else............ you would. Thats because you life is on the line.

The point of that is that I feel one need to have that mind set if they are going to be successful. Also another aspect of this is that when you are living a life of boy and girl back and forth it really does not work well. You have to be a girl 100% of the time. Perhaps thats why virtually no CDs ever have a decent voice. Its because the voice is not imperrative for survival and finally they can always go back to being a boy.

This, totally.

Also, do not acquire a second voice, change yours permanently. There are lots of people on the Internet with lots of advice, but it boils down to losing the resonance, being more melodious, not being afraid of a little sibilance, adding a little wind. Pitch is not that relevant. The biggest hurdle is getting over the fear of sounding ridiculous to your own ears and being afraid of appearing phony to your friends, family and co-workers.

[Stephenie S]

Yes, yes, and yes. Frances is SO right. Go full time and you will find yourself making surprising progress.

There is no question about this. Pitch has very little to do with sounding female. But you have to HAVE to do it. As long as you can slip easily back into your comfortable "guy" voice when it's convenient, you will make little progress unless you are exceptionally talented.

S

[Eileen]

Oh so true Frances and Stephenie S! Once we are full time we only need one voice!

[Melody Moore]

Since I have been full-time, which is getting close to a year now, I have had no need for
a male voice & if I try to go back into it, I have to think about it for a moment, but then
it feels so weird now for me to speak with my male voice. Speaking as a female felt really
awkward at first because I was always afraid of embarrassing myself, but I just kept pushing
forward with working on my voice & now I don't even raise any eyebrows at all when I speak.

The more you avoid speaking with the male voice & use the female voice the easier it becomes
So when you are living full-time as a female there is no reason to speak with a male voice so
eventually it appears that you've lost it & you have been installed a completely new voice box.

And it is not true that pitch has very little to do with sounding female, pitch plays a very big
& important part of the female voice. What people have to not do is 'over-pitch' their voice or
they risk damaging their vocal cords, & besides that they usually sound stupid like Minnie Mouse.

There is no doubt at all that the female voice operates in a higher pitch frequency than the male voice. It
helps if you understand music a little bit or know how to sing, but it is not essential to be a singer in order
to speak with a female voice. But understanding music helps you to understand the mechanics behind vocals.

The average male voice is around a |B| note in the first octave on piano keyboard, however the average
female voice around the next highest |A| note which is almost a full octave up a scale. The Speech therapist
who was giving vocal feminisation lessons to my local TS support group recently was trying to get us to aim
even slightly higher than the |A| note to the next |C| note up the scale. This stretching of the vocal chords
makes it easier to talk on the desired female pitch around |A| (440) a lot easier. But having said this there
are some women that do have slightly lower than normal vocal ranges for a female. So those with really deep
voices still can achieve the lower end of the female vocal ranges once they develop their falsetto voice more.

The way women speak does vary a lot to how guys speak. As Frances said, the female voice is more
breathy & less resonant, and also more melodious which is why learning how to pitch in a female range
is important, even if it is at the lower end of the pitch ranges from where females normally speak.

[Christy_M]

I've been working on something I would have thought as a feminine voice but when I got "Sir"'d at the Taco Bell drive thru, it was obvious I need more practice. I bought the Kathe Perez audio file and a tone thingy to see if I can reach the right pitch. I thought I was close but apparently there is a little more work to do. :(

[thechic]

This, totally.

Also, do not acquire a second voice, change yours permanently. There are lots of people on the Internet with lots of advice, but it boils down to losing the resonance, being more melodious, not being afraid of a little sibilance, adding a little wind. Pitch is not that relevant. The biggest hurdle is getting over the fear of sounding ridiculous to your own ears and being afraid of appearing phony to your friends, family and co-workers.

Id have to agree with Frances
dont acquire a second voice,just change your voice permanently,this worked well for me,i now dont have that male voice at all.

[Melody Moore]

I've been working on something I would have thought as a feminine voice but when I got "Sir"'d at the Taco Bell drive thru, it was obvious I need more practice. I bought the Kathe Perez audio file and a tone thingy to see if I can reach the right pitch. I thought I was close but apparently there is a little more work to do. :(
Don't give up or feel disheartened Christy, it takes time, I know how it feels when that happens
on a drive thru or on the phone, but these are the most truest tests of all for your female voice.
One way to really improve your voice is to record yourself & play it back. This way you will hear
what has to be changed in your own voice to feminise it more.

[Kaitlyn Michele]

Christy that's the point.. i got sir'd at dunkin donuts a month ago at the drive through.. there is no dynamic range in those systems... pitch does matter but only to give the person the first clue to gender...

when i checked out the guy didn't say anything about it but he called me honey, so thats another point...we get sir'd and its like OMG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! and someone gets it wrong and they usually will not give it a 2nd thought..

[Megan_Ashley]

I'd also highly recommend not answering the phone or door for the first hours or so after you've woken up, because whenever I wake up it's hard to do the voice immediately. I need to clear my throat, do some minor excercises like reading the paper or freeway signs aloud. It doesn't take much but it often takes something (and it seems to last the rest of the day, even if I'm not really speaking, until I wake up again.)

[Jorja]

Well, you could use the old tired and true method used in the days before the internet and 7000 people selling a program to help change your voice. A pair of pliers and a squeeze. :eek::eek::heehee:


I know I am not any help here but I subscribed to the get dressed and talk method. Eventually (in about the same time frame as other methods) you will master your voice.

[Nicole Erin]

the hard part of learning this is - trying to filter out all the extra BS of those "voice training" programs.

The gist - get over the silly feeling at first, and when practicing, try to restrict the lower part of the voice box, but without sounding falsetto... Also you have to start really concentrating on how certain things like gargling, yawning, and other things feel when you use different throat muscles.

[Melody Moore]

A couple of other tips I found handy for developing my female voice.

Being a singer & musician has taught me a few skills that has helped me a lot with the development of a
female voice, so I will try my best to explain what has helped me the most & simplify it as much as possible.

First of all it is important to always do some exercises & to warm up the vocal chords & relax facial & neck
muscles before doing vocal exercises, especially during the very early stages when you are developing your
female voice. Nearly one year now full-time & I still do my vocal warm-up exercises in the morning after I first
wake up so then my voice is primed & ready for use for the day. And don't worry, you are not alone, even as
a singer I had to get over feeling silly doing my vocal warm-ups & exercises, so its no different to when you
are learning to speak as like a female.

Males have to develop their 'falsetto or head voice' which is used in singing to be able to sound feminine, but
even for a singer who can sing in falsetto, this still takes some getting use to in vocal feminisation because
the falsetto voice is used differently. In vocal feminisation you are speaking in a falsetto voice & not singing
in a falsetto voice. So the intonation, breath & resonance all work very differently.

Singing lessons can be great to help you to understand how a falsetto voice works & help you to reach your falsetto
voice which is necessary in vocal feminisation. Singing lessons will also teach you the best techniques for warming up
& exercising your vocal chords, but they will not teach you to speak like a female. You have to learn to listen carefully
to how other women speak & train your voice to intonate in the same way as a woman's voice does when she speaks.

I developed my own method for improving my voice through a skill that I have developed through music. It is the ability
to listen to a song or melody, memorise it & then replicate it on a musical instrument, usually a guitar & with my voice.
So I have adapted this same skill now to vocal feminisation. What I do when I speak is to vocalise the female voice that
I can hear inside my head with whatever I wanted to say.

What I do is listen carefully to other women & memorise a phrase into my head & then transpose it slightly to suit my
female vocal range. So then I practise these phrases later until I get the pitch & intonation right. I hear phrases from
women on television & from those around me in my life. I liken the same process as digital sampling where you take a
music loop & rearrange it & use the pitch & intonation values I naturally develop from it in other vocal arrangements.

So my voice is developing in a female voice range that fits & feels the most comfortable for me without too much stress
& hard work at all really & it feels so much more natural & easier for me to do. I hope this make sense to anyone interested.

[~Seana~]

One of the things that you'll hear constantly is practise practise practise. Do it everywhere, thecorner store, the bank. I work in a call center and end up talking to people all day that I'll never speak to again and will never see me or know what i normally sound like. makes for good practise.

Seana

[erika130]

hmm great advice here.. especially coming from all you full time girls
now that i've started going out more & to a support group, i've realized i have soo much work to do on my voice. I keep thinking if others can do it, i can too, but sometimes it seems like i'm so far.
I can totally see how developing your 'one' and only voice into a female one is important, as opposed to trying to develop a second female voice. I cant be full time yet & i end up using the boy voice w some people, its awful.