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I don't fricking get voice training

Started by ~RoadToTrista~, November 13, 2011, 11:29:00 PM

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~RoadToTrista~

I thought it sounded female, but I recorded my voice and it all just sounds like different falsettos. Htf am I suppose to do this?
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Beep

I found that most of those online "how to gain a female voice" lessons and tutorials were a complete waste of time. They rarely including any decent advice. Especially that "Finding your female voice" lesson made by Deep Stealth. Horrible.

Here are a couple videos that actually helped me begin to understand how to use a female voice:
(Part1)
(Part2)
Some of the advice in there is useful, some is not so much.

This is extremely hard to explain through text, but I hope I can give you some insight as well.

Once you use your male voice for several years, it is extremely hard to get back to a female voice, but in my opinion, everyone is capable of doing it, they just lack the knowledge of which muscles to utilize and which ones not to.
Remember. Females are controlled by their hormones. This applies to almost everything about them, even their voices, therefore over-trying to achieve a female sounding voice is the wrong way to go, since using a female voice actually requires you to act completely natural, and you shouldn't have to think about it.

What I suggest is for you to first have your tongue in the proper relaxed position for a female, which is, having your tongue rest against the roof of your mouth. Higher than a male's resting position. If this seems awkward, it is because your tongue muscles have gotten lazy over the years from not using them. Males do not tend to use their tongue muscles as much when they create words, they instead use their breath, or raspiness. Not sure how to describe it.

Try doing some tongue exercises to strengthen your pronunciation of words, such as saying the sound "GUH" over and over. You'll notice that saying "GUH" makes the back of your tongue touch the roof of your mouth.
You should also try strengthening your lip muscles to better pronounce things. I suggest seeing a speech therapist, and asking them how you can strengthen your pronunciation.
When I say to pronounce things better, I don't want you to forcefully pronounce things. In the end, words should flow out of your mouth with great efficiency, and hardly any effort. Have you ever noticed that women can pronounce words very well with their teeth closed together, as if when they are angry? That is because they're using their tongue and lips to pronounce their words, not their breath. Their words are spoken with graceful, efficient movements from the tongue and lips, as if their tongue is dancing in their mouth, only positioning their tongue and lips somewhere they really NEED to be to produce the sound they want, and changing their tongue or lip's position for the next sound should be quick, efficient and flowing.

A woman's pitch is almost involuntarily controlled, if that makes any sense. When a woman laughs, or screams, she isn't thinking about raising the pitch of her voice higher, she is instead relying on her emotions to do this for her. When speaking, different emotions and feelings should make your voice automatically want to tighten up, raising your pitch, and relax, lowering your pitch, as you move your tongue and lips around creating words.

Like I said, hard to explain through text. I wish I could sit down with you, personally, and teach you, telling you what you're doing wrong, and what you're doing right.
As I mentioned earlier, if you are getting frustrated, I really suggest seeing a speech therapist.
Singing along while listening to female singers, trying your best to imitate their voice is also another great way to practice, since singing is very flowing.
Best of luck to you.
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~RoadToTrista~

Quote from: Beep on November 14, 2011, 02:05:59 AM
Try doing some tongue exercises to strengthen your pronunciation of words, such as saying the sound "GUH" over and over. You'll notice that saying "GUH" makes the back of your tongue touch the roof of your mouth.

Isn't that in those Finding Your Female Voice videos? Haha :P
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apple pie

I think getting rid of the "male resonance" is more important than anything.

Once you get rid of it, you can sort of get away with a low pitch (as long as it's not a really low bass voice), a flat tone throughout speaking, not enunciating clearly, swearing and so on... and still sound like a woman, although an unpleasant-sounding one! After all, a violent woman in a gang threatening to cut your head off is still going to sound like a woman ;D Here's me speaking in a flat tone, rapidly and slurring everything, and only taking out the deep resonance (and here's me enunciating the same paragraph clearly). I can get away with speaking like that online when I'm bored or tired or something.

So I think that's where the focus should be, before the other features of feminine speaking are added, because those won't make you sound female if you have a deep "male resonance".
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Annah

Quote from: ~RoadToTrista~ on November 13, 2011, 11:29:00 PM
I thought it sounded female, but I recorded my voice and it all just sounds like different falsettos. Htf am I suppose to do this?

Honestly, it takes a lot practice. Months of practice.

The first couple months I sounded like minnie mouse...then i sounded like a cross between a guy and a girl (which would have still clocked me).

I started training my voice in June 2010 and I didn't get it nailed down until January of 2011. That's seven months for me. If you look at my earlier videos you can hear the deep voice but I got the resonance down pat....then as the videos progressed, so did my voice (except for the video I did when I had the flu!)
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Joeyboo~ :3

I don't get it either.
Not one bit.

I have a low low voice.
I have no hope for trying to make it into a female's.
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Dana_H

Quote from: JoeyD on November 15, 2011, 01:09:08 PM
I don't get it either.
Not one bit.

I have a low low voice.
I have no hope for trying to make it into a female's.


Never say never.  I know a couple cis-women at work who can sing bass, yet they still sound unmistakably female. There is actually a great deal of overlap in range between male and female voices. I'm working on my voice now and I can honestly say that reducing resonance from the chest cavity seems to make more of a difference than anything else I have tried so far.  It's not easy, and it gets mighty frustrating at times, but it can be done.  It's hard to explain how I do it, but it's kind of like speaking from the back of my head instead of from my chest, if that makes any sense.  (I have found that it is more difficult to project well that way.  I'm hoping that will come with practice.)

I've noticed that it seems to be a lot easier just after I've been "cute-talking" to my pet bunny.  Apparently, my "baby-talk" voice is fairly close vocally to where my female voice is.

Consistency is the other big factor. That's the one I'm struggling with right now.  I can't do it reliably.  Yet.
Call me Dana. Call me Cait. Call me Kat. Just don't call me late for dinner.
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Lynn

Quote from: Dana_H on November 15, 2011, 11:38:33 PMIt's hard to explain how I do it, but it's kind of like speaking from the back of my head instead of from my chest, if that makes any sense.
That made a LOT of sense to me! I tried it just now, and my voice sounded a hell of a lot more natural than it did before. Although it's not exactly feminine yet, that was some definite improvement.

I had never thought of it like that (because people always want to use confusing technical terms), so thank you for that extremely helpful tip! :)
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~RoadToTrista~

I baby talk my cats all the time, so my voice is pretty ranged.

I tried singing along with female singers, and tried this certain way where my jaw like, resists because of a reflex. Is that good or should I just stop working against it? Idk maybe it has nothing to do with anything lolz
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Keaira

#9
I don't get it either. I listen to myself in playbacks and I hate it. I don't even like my own natural voice, which everyone says is very gender neutral. And I honestly don't see how it could be gender neutral.

I always feel stupid practicing but I know if I don't then I will continued the be seen as male. But I hate my voice enough that I don't even want to hear my voice.. its frustrating!
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Dana_H

Quote from: Lynn on November 17, 2011, 07:40:27 PM
That made a LOT of sense to me! I tried it just now, and my voice sounded a hell of a lot more natural than it did before. Although it's not exactly feminine yet, that was some definite improvement.

I had never thought of it like that (because people always want to use confusing technical terms), so thank you for that extremely helpful tip! :)

Glad I could help.  I've encountered a lot of those technical terms myself.  I mean, I really don't care about "fundamental frequencies", "prosody", or "inflection points".  Sure, it's all important stuff to know if you are a vocal professional, but I don't need to know the technical terms for how my muscles and nervous system interact in order to learn a new handshake. All I really want to know is "how does it feel  when I am doing it right?" and "how do I achieve that feeling without hurting myself?"  That sensation of "head talking" was my first major "aha" moment. More recently, I've been realizing that feminine voices do tend to be more melodic in tone and rhythm than masculine voices (there's that "prosody" thing). When I fall back on the old "male" way of doing things, I get this sense of "forcing the words out", that I never realized was there before.

And, yes, relaxation is just as important as practice.
Call me Dana. Call me Cait. Call me Kat. Just don't call me late for dinner.
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El

I hate trying to get my voice right, this hasbeen the hardest element to my transition bar the disphoria that pre-empted it. The real killer is that every time i make some progress in private as soon as there is another human being about it seems to fly away. Ironic that what is holding me back is the fear of sounding stupid in front of people, which is the reason im trying to change my voice in the first place XD.

Oh well im sure ill get there!
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apple pie

Quote from: ~RoadToTrista~ on November 18, 2011, 12:47:25 AM
I baby talk my cats all the time, so my voice is pretty ranged.

I tried singing along with female singers, and tried this certain way where my jaw like, resists because of a reflex. Is that good or should I just stop working against it? Idk maybe it has nothing to do with anything lolz

Hmmm if you already have the range, I don't believe singing helps with sounding feminine when speaking. I practise sounding feminine in both singing and speaking, but I do them very differently, with little in common. Even males would sing very differently from how they speak, right?
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Joeyboo~ :3

Quote from: Dana_H on November 15, 2011, 11:38:33 PM

Never say never.  I know a couple cis-women at work who can sing bass, yet they still sound unmistakably female. There is actually a great deal of overlap in range between male and female voices. I'm working on my voice now and I can honestly say that reducing resonance from the chest cavity seems to make more of a difference than anything else I have tried so far.  It's not easy, and it gets mighty frustrating at times, but it can be done.  It's hard to explain how I do it, but it's kind of like speaking from the back of my head instead of from my chest, if that makes any sense.  (I have found that it is more difficult to project well that way.  I'm hoping that will come with practice.)

I've noticed that it seems to be a lot easier just after I've been "cute-talking" to my pet bunny.  Apparently, my "baby-talk" voice is fairly close vocally to where my female voice is.

Consistency is the other big factor. That's the one I'm struggling with right now.  I can't do it reliably.  Yet.

I've been working on it constantly but I still haven't gotten any results that I feel comfortable with.
I've been watching Youtube videos.
I haven't gotten professional help yet, it's prolly something I need to look into.

This was my starting point


It was pretty terrifying.
-sigh-

and I still dont like my voice, I still sound boy-ish.
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Lallie

Quote from: Lynn on November 17, 2011, 07:40:27 PM
That [head voice adjustment] made a LOT of sense to me! I tried it just now, and my voice sounded a hell of a lot more natural than it did before. Although it's not exactly feminine yet, that was some definite improvement...

Yes, it is amazing how a simple adjustment can make such a great difference. I just tried it too, and it really works. Thanks, Dana_H.

:) Lallie
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fionabell

I watched this crap movie with Daryl Hannah in it. I found for some weird reason, I'm able to impersonate her.

The problem is finding the right type of female voice for yourself.

This movie was recent and so Daryl Hannah is the age she is now. I've noticed older women have deeper voices. Also she has a decent amount of dialog in it.

I found those videos mentioned earlier in this thread to be unhelpful. Mostly because the guy talking about it never actually went into a female voice to demonstrate!! ??? I've always spoken through my face rather than my chest, so that's no help. As for the other stuff. I learn talking instinctively by copying(like every other human!) and the scientific dismantling of the process isn't really of benefit for me.



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Assoluta

I don't get voice training, but mainly because I don't really see the use of it. I got my basic voice within about ten minutes and made it reasonably convincing by 3 months, and improved it over the years to a point where most people think my voice never broke (although a discerning listener would be able to notice that my voice possibly had broken). I appreciate that for people who transition later, changing the voice is harder, but I cannot see that it is that much harder, particularly as I know some who transitioned in their 40s and 50s with feminine sounding voices.

All it took for me was to initially use falsetto and speak as high as possible, and then lower this into a sensible sounding pitch, maintaining this way of softer projection without going into chest voice, and that was it, an instant base for the female voice. Over time, I gradually mixed a little chest voice to make the voice stronger and less breathy, and developed new vocal habits as to not sound monotone, but I honestly think it's far more straightforward than some make it out to be.
It takes balls to go through SRS!

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http://www.youtube.com/user/Kibouo?feature=mhee
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