Another Tip for those working on a female voice

[Julie Martin]

Hi all,

There is a great deal of material out there on developing a female voice. I have read as much material and watched all the videos I could find from many sources, including purchasing one of the commercially available programs for this purpose. Different techniques may work for different people, and for me it has taken years of practice, trial and error. Within the last year my female voice has finally developed to the point where it does not give me away, which is a huge help in confidence when out. On the phone I am maam'ed 100% of the time, a tougher test as there are no other gender cues available to the listener. I should add that my male voice is very deep, and that is not a limiting factor in developing a convincing female voice.

A few tips I have picked up from a variety of sources have been most effective for me, things like using the bootom end of your head voice, starting from a yawn, lifting the soft palette at the back of your mouth, having all airways as open as possible,smile, breath support from the diaphragm for resonance, etc. One recent thing that helped it fall into place for me was a tip about imagining the sound coming out your forehead! This has made it possible for me to use the nasal chamber to create a "head voice" with female resonance..quite amazing. All the bones in your head vibrating help to make this work, so there's no "minnie mouse" character at all. The pitch will find itself naturally depending on the person, and is not a big factor in how female your voice sounds..using the nasal chamber will automatically raise the pitch since the chamber is small.

For the science behind this, check out this link related to singing: it shows where all this is, and visualizing using the nasal chamber to create the sound, coupled with all the other accumulated tips, has worked majic for me:

http://www.vocalist.org.uk/headorchest.html

Good luck!

[Jorja]

I guess I haven't posted it in quite a while now. When I was first trying to develop my female voice some 40 years ago, I had a friend that was a high school music teacher. She taught me exactly what you are talking about, using the nasal chamber to create the sound. It works, try it.

[bridget thronton]

Thanks for sharing such a very clear explanation of this technique

[Julie Martin]

Thanks for sharing such a very clear explanation of this technique

My pleasure. I wish I'd had the mental picture of exactly where to shape the sound years ago...since finding that, it's been just a matter of experimenting with the nuances of what shapes the sound..more trial and error. Before I found that spot, a lot of the other advice from the pros did not work..now it does!

[Henriette7]

Hu Julie

What a great tip. I will read it carefully and try to give it a go :-)

Hugs
Henriette

[Lorileah]

One recent thing that helped it fall into place for me was a tip about imagining the sound coming out your forehead! This has made it possible for me to use the nasal chamber to create a "head voice" with female resonance..

I guess I haven't posted it in quite a while now. When I was first trying to develop my female voice some 40 years ago, I had a friend that was a high school music teacher. She taught me exactly what you are talking about, using the nasal chamber to create the sound. It works, try it.

Thus all the talking heads in the media who sound like they have a cold. Like Bernadette on Big Bang

[Karyn Marie]

I have always wondered how I can change to a female sounding voice. I read through this thread and skimmed the link provided. I am going to read it a little closer when I have time, and start working on my voice. Thank you so much for the information.

[BarbDriscoll]

I'd also like to add my thanks.

Side note: I've videoed Barbara speaking, for practice. Surprised to discover that for some unknown reason Barbara speaks with a Brooklyn accent that's not there (or at least nowhere near as noticeable) in male mode.

[DianeDeBris]

Julie - this is a *wonderful* insight - thank you so much! Hugs - Diane

[Beverley Sims]

Julie,
A wonderful observation by you.
I practice singing like Helen Shapiro, I do not sound like her but the breathing that is needed for singing comes into play when I am speaking.
I will look up more of what you have said now.

[mariehart]

Thanks for the tips. I'm lucky to have a soft slightly high voice already but I've been trying to refine it for the times when I will be interacting with people when dressed.

Very useful.

[Julie Martin]

Hey all, for those of you responding and following up, or if you want to share this info, the devil is in the details, as in many things. Remember that this is how I experience it, which may not work for you at all..or it might!

In addition to the previous info about the final shaping of the sound with the nasal chamber, it’s important to understand that ALL of the airways are involved, from the deeper parts of the chest and throat, the mouth, and the nasal cavity. For me, having a mental picture of what’s I think is going on is really helpful.

Some of the images that have helped it click for me:

-I picture the nasal chamber like a dome, and the sound finally exiting the top of the dome toward my forehead, even the top of my head. I try to imagine keeping the nasal chamber fully expanded so it doesn’t choke the sound and cause the Minnie mouse effect. Keeping the nasal cavity fully expanded goes hand in hand with raising the soft palette, these 2 things tend to happen together. Using the nasal chamber as the final processing location for the finished product does NOT mean the voice will sound nasal, IF everything the air flows through is as open as possible…your throat, the inside of your mouth, the air passage up to the nasal chamber, and the nasal chamber itself. When you hit this right, you feel ( at least I feel) the voice resonating from your chest right out through your forehead ( even a bit in the ear canals for me!), everything working together, but the nasal chamber is the conduit that it all flows out of, the “finishing room”.

-2 things help me let all this happen: relax, and smile. The nasal chamber will produce the pitch for you because of its size, which will be high enough so that the pitch alone will not be a limiting factor in how female you sound...the actual pitch will vary with the specific anatomy of each person, which is fine.( The resonance is a much bigger deal than pitch, many have noted this and it’s absolutely true.)

One more post coming…..

Hey again all,

The last few things I have to share on this…

-I spent years of trial and error (and a little money) struggling to produce a really female sounding voice. Before I read someone else’s mental image of the voice “coming out your forehead and the top of your head” , I had not discovered this last piece with the nasal cavity etc. It may shave some time off the process for some people..

-there is a singing exercise that I found very helpful in developing control of all this, you can find it on line: take a deep breath, then starting at the top of your falsetto register, with the voice feeling like it’s up in your skull, go from your highest falsetto continually down through the spot your voice usually breaks into your chest voice..but don’t let it break, make it a seamless transition. This is VERY difficult at first, but is a huge help in developing the control you need to master the female voice. Keep everything wide open, especially the nasal cavity, and picture the sound traveling along the back surface of all the airways, from up in the skull, down through the nasal cavity, the passage down to the mouth, the back of the mouth, down the throat into your chest. RELAX, and eventually you will learn to do this, and you will find the spot in your “head voice” just above where it would break into chest voice if you let it. That’s the spot where the female voice lives in all of us…then you learn to control and shape from there.

-the first time I tried some of this, all I could produce was AIR. No sound at all. It takes a long time for the vocal folds and muscles in some of these areas to develop to the point where they start contributing…just like any other parts of your body, they need to be developed and exercised. (Drink plenty of water, lubrication helps.) Success could take months, could take years, depending on the person, and how much you can practice. But it takes a LOT of practice. If this is useful to you and you want to follow up on details, feel free to PM me. I’m not on the site much, but this has been a breakthrough for me, so thought I’d share in case it helps someone. Good luck!

OK I lied..one last thing..for those who find the science helpful, the air passage linking all the chambers together vertically is the pharynx ...see the discussion in the link about the "elevator". Again, good luck.