Lessons in sounds

Hey everyone! I?m Vicki. I?m actually just a CD but I felt like I would get much better info from this part of the forum and insight be able to help other better here... I?m aiming to be passable. Doing a lot of work to get to the point when I physically look female minus my height. I used to inspire to be a voice actor and spent a considerable amount of time learning about my voice.

With that said. I?m working on my voice. I have read mixed reviews on the forum about getting a voice that passes. I think any that anyone has the ability to learn a female voice with the right training. I have a fairly high pitched male voice naturally. Over the years I have learned to control my resonance and pitch to push deeper and a little higher. I have learned that I can pull of a George Takei voice. I do this often and I have been asked how. Got George Takei to record my voice mail message before.

Like with any skill this is not something I figured out how to do over night or even in a few weeks. Mastering the voice is something that takes months or even years and dedicated practice. I about to start taking vocal lessons to start learning how to move my resonance higher. I have seen trans people that have learned and master voice skills to have a passing voice.

Here is my two cents on the matter. Practice. Like any skill you need to practice. My approach to practicing is by not dedicating time to practicing. Instead of setting down an hour of my time to do it I fill my day with it. When ever I have 30 second or 5 minutes. I always do my voice exercises during my commute to and from work, in the bathroom, while making dinner, or anytime I?m in ?idle mode?.

During times when I have more time I listen to voice samples of the voices I?m trying to learn to imitate and practice with them to learn both the cadence and rhythm. This also helps with learning the pitch. During my drive I have an audio cd in my car I listen to with voice samples and vocal warmups. If you can make your practice time just somebody g you do when you are in your idle state then you will actually get more practice and eventually it becomes second nature.

Now that I have said my piece on the subject. I want to know what you all think and have experienced that has helped or hindered you on your journey. Have you succeeded or are you struggling or even just quit trying?

Thank you for sharing this, Victoria. You're quite right, of course, that it takes practice, and as you also share, professional guidance. Overcoming both the anatomical and learned differences between male and female voices is tough. I had vocal training as a singer (baritone) and occasionally work as a voice actor/narrator. I still can't pull off feminine sounding voice, and I'm not going to work on that until it becomes important enough to seek help from someone who specializes on our narrow field, because I understand that one can learn bad habits which are hard to unlearn, or even do permanent damage with the wrong approach.

Your absolutely correct Kelly. I any time when your throat starts to hurt or if it starts to get raspy you need to stop and take a break and some time even re-evaluate your methods. I would love to put together a good comprehensive guide one day.

It is possible, but it’s not easy. Speech patterns are just about as important as tone, so you need to learn to talk like a woman before you can sound like a woman.

Micki, your absolutely right about that. This is something I tend to forget about. I grew up in a house full of women. I lived with my mom, grandma, and my aunt. My father was never in the picture so most of speech patterns I learned growing up were very female.

Women do tend to have a more melodic pattern of speech as well as some minor differences in language when picking the words to use. Such as tummy or belly instead of gut.

Commute and at home for me too.

I've been a singer for many years, played a lot of gigs, all male mode ? but even though my male range is baritone into low tenor, the years of scale singing and voice training really helps.

For resonance, I learned where to better place my voice for a more 'head' sound rather than a deeper chest resonance ? that takes real practice and I have a long way to go! With decent placement, I start with scales and arpeggios. From Do to So up and down, then up a half step rinse and repeat until I'm as high as I can comfortably go. I push it another half step up or two, but that it.

Then, I found an old song that I know well, the lyrics run by quickly so it helps with my elocution with the new awkward placement, and the melody runs up and down but with a range within an octave so I can stretch the upper range without overly straining.

I've noticed improvement, but it takes a lot of practice and progress comes a little at a time.

Before I went to my 1st trans event about 10 years ago, I practiced my fem voice like crazy, Vicky. Then, in a hotel filled with T's? I don't recall more than a few that sounded even vaguely fem. With all these fem looking T's around me speaking like lumber jacks? I felt embarrassed to even try out my fem voice!

The same is true now. Even after attending countless T events, I'm startled whenever a pretty T speaks and sounds fem!:eek:
Needless to say, I completely gave up on my fem voice!

Maybe I should add, if I had any interest in going out to vanilla venues dressed? I'd start practicing again!:battingeyelashes:

Men speak from the chest or lower portion of the larynx women speak from the top of the larynx.
So training yourself to change position of where you carry your voice from is how some have done it.
Personally I use a a lighter/softer tone of my male voice and I get by just fine.
Doing it that way always kept me from sounding like a cartoon character.
If you are around other trans people there is really no need to alter your voice like Sherry explained.
Really I am not trying to sound like a woman but more like myself a trans person.
I am not going to fool anyone and I am sure 99% can figure out I am trans and not a GG.

A "proper" female voice modulates sentences to put the emphasis the right place. I had voice therapy to learn how to that, It helped that when I started I would clearly say each word, as that is another characteristic of female speech.

Victoria,
I'm still not convinced it matters to that degree . I still feel the visual message is more important once people have accpeted what they think you are the voice becomes secondary to it . I have spoken to delegates in a lecture theatre in my normal voice without any problems , it would take a long time to practice a consistent voice for more than a few minutes . I also have a problem with my throat , so I'm slightly relunctant to strain my voice too much , besides that I've recently had hearing aids fitted to enhace my higher frequencies so I've gone from hardly hearing my voice at all to clearly hearing what I sound like , to me it doesn't sound too bad .

Basically we have to accept we will never pass 100% so there's no point in trying , we have too many little telltales besides our voice to achieve it .

I will add that none of my TG friends do change their voice , for the ones still half in the closet it doesn't matter and for many of the others the problem of balancing hormones is more important .

To answer your question , NO I don't think it's hindered me at all .

My work colleague who's transitioning, just had her voice box altered (shaved? stitched?).
2 weeks of communicating with text, word and a white board.
It was pretty cool, I won all the arguments and had a stack of mute jokes (she wasn't allowed to cough or laugh)
Tuesday she will be speaking to me again, excited to hear if there's much difference.

Theresa: The want to sound like a woman when talking is just a personal thing. It?s not something that everyone pushes for. I know Im not a little hottie that is easily mistaken for a woman. But I always wanted to have the voice. I also love doing voices and accents. It?s kind of a characteristic of me now. Everyone kind of just expects me to be using a different voice or accent all the time. I tell a lot of jokes and sometimes voices just works better. I am a nears and play D&D. I always give my characters a unique voice except when I play a female character. I think it would be awesome to be able to have the range to reach as low as George Takei or up to a female voice. If I could hit the range right I could learn so many new voices.

I just always wanted a voice that could not be mistaken. When I was younger (teens~early 20?s) I was 100 percent passable as a woman except my apple and voice. I was tall but I loved how I looked. Wish I had the body I did back then... I probably would have been more open to. Going out when I was young if I didn?t have the fear of talking. I grew up in a smallish town that is kinda of uptight. So I always feared being realized. Now I don?t have that same fear. Now it?s just a want to have the voice.

I agree, if your worries about your voice don?t attempt it. Never ever push anything to hurting your self.

Rachelakld: your friend must have been really worried about voice to do the surgery. I don?t blame you on the jokes. I would been all over that too! Please let me know how her voice sounds after!

Victoria,
Maybe there's something to be said for sounding appropriate to your appearance as well as dressing to look right .

Womens can vary almost as much as men with the pitch of their voice , a heavy smoker often has a deep husky one . It's funny but sometimes people say a woman with a bad cold can sound very sexy with a deeper husky voice , odd isn't it ?

Actually there are several women with a deeper pitch. Look at the voice of Scarlet Johansson. She has a great voice. She has an amazing voice.

I pass as a woman in appearance no matter what I wear, but with my deep bass voice I will not completely pass. I sing down to C2, two ledger lines below the bass staff, and my normal speaking voice is around 90 Hz. What's amazing are the times I get ma'amed after talking.