controlling my voice - need critique!

[Layn]

i don't even know what exactly to ask for. i've been trying various voice guides, but i have always problems understanding what exactly im supposed to do with it. Dunno, it's never explained in the terms of how i see how i control my voice (its like moving a certain point around in my head or even down my throat if i'm going for a male voice).
according to others my voice is kinda sorta maybe okay but instead of talking in that "singsongy" way, i work too much with the volume. But i'm just not seeing how to change that! it seems when i move that "point" forward my voice gets louder, so i guess thats what i have to avoid. moving the point up seems to change the pitch. at least at the top is what i suppose is falsetto. i've got to avoid falsetto, but is the pitch what im looking for when trying to talk in a more singsongy way?

[carolinejeo]

There is a Yahoo group that you would find helpful VoiceTS and also a web resource: http://www.tsvoice.com.

Essentially you need to move your voice from your throat into your mouth, sounds tricky but once mastered it becomes second nature.

Good luck.

Caroline

[Layn]

thanks!

mhm, i am sorta pretty sure that that's where i usually have my voice (except when it decides to not stay there ). You know, i think i don't need to worry about my voice that much, i only have to try to keep it where it should be.

[carolinejeo]

Practice, practice, practice!

[Nicky]

A lot of techniques are centered around just using part of your voicebox. One way to do it is this. If you raise your pitch, start low then make your voice go higher and higher, you will get to a point where there is a break before you go higher still. It is like your voice catches or fades out a second before you hear yourself go higher still.  It will sounds like:

low aaaaaaaaaaaaaa......aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa high

That pause is when you are switching into your falsetto. Everything higher than that pause bit is your falsetto voice. Now practice talking like that and feel your voice box, it will mostly be vibrating in the top half. This is kind of what the aim is. To just use the top half.

Now once you have that you want to practice dropping your pitch again without letting it drop out of falsetto i.e. don't let it take that little 'pause' as you drop down like it did when you went up. It is almost like you are clenching your voice box. That is what it felt like to me.

But as you said your voice is probably ok, it is more with how you speak.

I find the best advice for me to be more 'singsong' is to talk with your head. As in be expressive with your head, and really your whole body, and your voice will follow. Like try talking like a valley girl and get your hands and head and shoulders going. this is exaggerated but it might give you the idea. This matches up with the idea of talking from your head instead of your chest.

But the most useful thing I did was just be a woman in a group of woman. Listen to how they talk. You pick up a lot just by being there as yourself.

I worked on my voice and now I can't find my 'old voice' anymore. It has gone, except when I have a cold. Then I sounds like Barry white!


Anyway hope this is helpful

[Layn]

Practice, practice, practice!

but... that takes work!

thank you Nicky, i'll try that!

any tips on how to train when the most private place you have is your appartment and it has pretty thin walls?

[JenniL]

 Not sure for an apartment with thin walls though, you could try practicing in the living room if the apartment is a one bedroom versus a studio. I practice in the living room, i wanted to practice in the bedroom but had the same issue so i am stuck in the living room which works out. No one has said anything neighbor wise or anything like that.

But if you have a car you can always practice to and from places. It may seem foolish but everyone does everything in the car anyhow from eating, reading while on the highway, to putting make up on.

[Layn]

Not sure for an apartment with thin walls though, you could try practicing in the living room if the apartment is a one bedroom versus a studio. I practice in the living room, i wanted to practice in the bedroom but had the same issue so i am stuck in the living room which works out. No one has said anything neighbor wise or anything like that.

But if you have a car you can always practice to and from places. It may seem foolish but everyone does everything in the car anyhow from eating, reading while on the highway, to putting make up on.

unfortunately i have no living room and no car...

i do sing with most of my music! i could even try playing the singing in the various rock band and guitar hero games, at least i'd have an excuse why i'm making this terrible noise

[HitOrMiss.]

I'm in the same boat. I've seen what people say about speaking from different areas, but it just confuses me.

Same here. None of the voice stuff I've seen (youtube videos & a voice workbook) have helped me understand what exactly I should be doing. I basically gave up doing it on my own last year and decided I'd have to find a trans-friendly voice coach. I got one recommended to me but they only work with people who are full time. I'm no where near confident enough to go full time (or part time for that matter) mostly because of the current state of my voice... so I'm kind of stuck. For me, my voice is the #1 thing holding me back, and I'm really anxious about it.

[MasterAsh]

Same here. None of the voice stuff I've seen (youtube videos & a voice workbook) have helped me understand what exactly I should be doing. I basically gave up doing it on my own last year and decided I'd have to find a trans-friendly voice coach. I got one recommended to me but they only work with people who are full time. I'm no where near confident enough to go full time (or part time for that matter) mostly because of the current state of my voice... so I'm kind of stuck. For me, my voice is the #1 thing holding me back, and I'm really anxious about it.

The Andrea James approach, with the "pinched" and "breathy" voices, I think do a decent job of communicating the idea of getting the voice to move up and go out. The "pinched" forces sound to originate more from the upper half of the voice box, while the "breathy" forces sound to move out. Combining the two together forms the one-two punch that allows your voice to resonate more in your skull than in your chest. Think of your voice as originating from a single point in your throat. You goal is to move that point up and broadcast the sound produced outwards through your skull, mainly into the roof of your mouth.

[Debra]

I had trouble with this so at some point I just went and saw a professional.

Sandy Hirsch (http://www.givevoice.com ) is an excellent feminine voice expert.

She lives in the Seattle area but she does do Skype sessions as well.

If you want to see how I progressed, this is a video I made that goes between before and about 9 months after voice therapy:

[MarionLove]

Hi Girls,
How can I help? All what I can say is that all of you have a beautiful female voice, all of us transgender women have a female voice hidden between the falsetto voice and chest voice (male voice).

The best way to explain this, Is like when you suddenly have not power in your house and you trying to plugging a lamp directly into a wall outlet but you cannot see it. You know the wall outlet is there, you can touch it, you feel the little holes but is so difficult to plugging it. You are BLIND, lost and you have only two choices, keep trying or give up!  Is just because before training our voice we are blind! We know to get to falsetto, we use every day our chest voice or male voice but get into the middle, to a mixed voice is difficult without the help of a professional. I had only 2 sessions with Kathe Perez via Skype, not expensive at all but she guided me till I recognized, my falsetto, my chest voice and finally my mixed voice.. If I did it, YOU CAN!!!!!! We all can! 

Here are some videos of my male and female voice,,,

http://www.youtube.com/user/tgvoice#p/a/u/0/EJKXJIL8DQY


Oops, sorry for my English, articulation and mistakes....

I wish you all the best to all of you..
Much Love

Marión Love

[iris1469]

very cool

[Layn]

i did have some old topic around here, didn't i?*rummages around* AH! there you are!
so, the practicing. i haven't been doing that that much. The problem is i try around with lots of different voices (not only female) just for fun (and maybe for voice acting in my own little animation and game projects? ooooh!) and then i can't remember which one was the right direction. But i'd like to share a recording and get some feedback. It is really close to my natural voice, but i somehow always slip out of it (and my natural voice) to a more male and monotone one when i get withdrawn (which is with everyone) or tired (except when tiredness leads to crazyness.... pulling alnighters to finish projects shouldn't be done )

http://www.mediafire.com/?t3y3b71c9gamyh6

wow i was really stumbling with those "r"s. i never knew i can't say "rarely"

[Layn]

some feedback would be appreciated

[apple pie]

Hello Layn!

Don't worry about the pronunciation! In fact, if it's hard for you, maybe recording something in Portuguese would let you concentrate fully on the actual voice instead of the pronunciation? (You can say the word "rarely" without the second R if you do it the European way, if that makes it easier.)

At the moment, I think the current combination of low pitch and deep timbre makes it sound fairly masculine, but adjusting either one or the other could well make it sound feminine. Pitch is probably the way to go, but I myself use a different timbre instead of a different pitch (I speak with roughly the same baseline pitch as you, though it fluctuates a lot more from the baseline than you).

I don't think trying different voices is a "problem". I try different voices myself a lot (mostly for singing, such as trying to sound cute or virile or whatever), and I think it lets you realize the range of voices you can currently make.

[Layn]

thanks

argh stupid chest resonance, i've been trying to get my voice out, but i guess i haven't managed to get it completely out. i see what you mean, when i try with "mmmmm" but then i try to say some words and i still feel a bit of vibration in my chest.

oh and english is actually my third language! but even though i've hardly spoken it outside of classes that i had years ago with a teacher who spoke with a godawful german accent, i'm pretty fluent in all three languages i speak. I do have minor problems with all three, and i might be more shakey when actually speaking english out loud.
it just annoys me a bit i can't get the R right in english. And i do now speak at my university some english now and then, so i will get the training (and i do tend to talk with myself, so there's some more training there ).

i'm not quite sure what timbre is. i mean, i read descriptions and explanations and whatnot and sortof understand what is meant, and yet i have no idea what would be my timbre nor how to change it.

i'm going to listen to my recording again, i guess it'll be clearer then what you mean
thanks again

[apple pie]

I don't mean anything technical by timbre! By timbre I just mean generally how it sounds like regardless of pitch—for example, a violin and a viola are similar musical instruments, but have a different timbre, in the sense that the viola has a deeper, richer sound even when played at the same pitch as the violin. And a tenor singing sounds different from a bass singing even when they are singing at the same pitch. That's all I meant by it. When you are trying to use "different voices", you are changing the timbre too.

It's my opinion that you don't really need to worry about the English R I often chat with lots of Europeans / South Americans speaking English over the Internet, and almost none of them use the English R and just use the R from their own language, and it's perfectly understandable The English R is very rare, so it can be hard!

I also think that one should reduce the resonance in the chest instead of getting it out "completely". Leaving some in the chest makes it sound more natural than having it completely out. My chest is always vibrating to some extent when I speak.

PS I tried to do a recording to try to show different-sounding voices at the same pitch, but I failed miserably at it... have a laugh though if you like! Like I said I use quite a low speaking voice...
http://www.sendspace.com/file/t88f9l (zip password aepfelsindyummy)

[Layn]

I don't mean anything technical by timbre! By timbre I just mean generally how it sounds like regardless of pitch—for example, a violin and a viola are similar musical instruments, but have a different timbre, in the sense that the viola has a deeper, richer sound even when played at the same pitch as the violin. And a tenor singing sounds different from a bass singing even when they are singing at the same pitch. That's all I meant by it. When you are trying to use "different voices", you are changing the timbre too.

O_o now i'm even more confused. But i think i sorta get it. ... maybe. oh i why couldn't i be a more musical person?

[apple pie]

Sorry, I suck at explaining stuff! (@_@)
Zoe made a video doing lots of different voices in another thread, you can take a look! That's what I mean...
https://www.susans.org/forums/index.php/topic,94280.msg767945.html#msg767945