Random questions from a new future MtF (Renamed from voice, hormones...)

[Firecat]

I was just wondering if perhaps the estrogenic hormones will have an effect on my voice?  I wouldn't say I have a deep voice, so I'm not worried about that... A friend of mine said my voice isn't really deep, but that it is a male's voice.

Hopefully I'm not  getting all jumbled up here... simply put; I realize the hormones wouldn't have an effect on the depth of my voice, but would it otherwise have any effect on feminizing it a bit? As really, it's the one thing that has me concerned right now about my possible future transition

[Ms. OBrien CVT]

HRT does not effect the voice.  Voice training does.  There is surgery to change the voice, but training is so much easier and cheaper.

[Firecat]

Voice training seems incredibly daunting to me, I'd be so worried about slipping up. Strangest thing is I brought the topic of voice training up to my therapist and she basically looked at me aghast and gave me the whole "Why would you want that? You don't need voice training, the whole point of doing this is to be yourself! Besides the hormones should soften your voice a little, it effects the voices of natural women!" 

*facepalms*  More and more I'm wondering if she might be a bad fit

[Nicolette]

Allowing the woman from within to emerge contributed very much to my voice training. That meant stopping completely from socialising as male. I had a few useless sessions of voice therapy on the NHS in the UK. What affected my voice the most was having long conversations with friends over the phone. Without even realising it, my voice was becoming 'female', including pitch and inflections. So the next voice therapist I found didn't think could help me much with improvements, as I was just about there. I haven't been mis-gendered on the phone for 15 years. To me it feels like my voice hasn't changed, as the changes were gradual.

[Beverly]

Voice training seems incredibly daunting to me, I'd be so worried about slipping up.

It is like anything else - practice, practice, practice.

Strangest thing is I brought the topic of voice training up to my therapist and she basically looked at me aghast and gave me the whole "Why would you want that? You don't need voice training, the whole point of doing this is to be yourself! Besides the hormones should soften your voice a little, it effects the voices of natural women!" 

Your therapist obviously has no idea what she is talking about, so let us tackle this and then you can inform her better.

1) "the hormones should soften your voice a little" - as others have said, this is simply wrong. We should know.... 

2) "the whole point of doing this is to be yourself" - I agree with this, but part of being yourself is being accepted in the female role you need to live in.

Let us give your therapist a simple example. She is in a public toilet and sitting on the toilet doing her 'business' when the woman in the next cubicle accidently drops something on the floor. It rolls into your therapists cubicle. A nicely manicured hand appears under the divider between the cubicles......

Scenario A: a feminine voice says 'Sorry - could you hand me that back please?'

Scenario B: a masculine voice says 'Sorry - could you hand me that back please?'

Question: Which scenario - A or B - causes the cops to be called?

[JennX]

Voice training seems incredibly daunting to me, I'd be so worried about slipping up. Strangest thing is I brought the topic of voice training up to my therapist and she basically looked at me aghast and gave me the whole "Why would you want that? You don't need voice training, the whole point of doing this is to be yourself! Besides the hormones should soften your voice a little, it effects the voices of natural women!" 

*facepalms*  More and more I'm wondering if she might be a bad fit

HRT does not affect your voice period. Your therapist is wrong. Also, there are many good reasons why you want to have a voice which fits your outer gender presentation. If you ever need to find a job, few places will hire any person who's voice doesn't match their gender be they MTF or FTM, looks aside. You need to practice as that's the only way it's going to change.

[Firecat]

Ugh x.x this really does scare me more than the SRS and tossup between Electrolysis or laser or any of it really.  Is the vocal training something I can teach myself? Or is this something I require a specialist for? I have been practicing my pitch and tone when I've been alone a bit, singing and whatnot, seeing how long I can keep to a higher pitch. Its pretty difficult, and runs me out of breath.

I recently had a reaction to a certain medication that caused me to lose a bit of weight (168 down to about 160-162 in just a couple of days) and about a few other curious side effects. One of them, I swear, was my voice was a bit different. I don't know how or why, but I really couldn't speak in a low tone at all for a few days... as if someone had cut the cord to the bottom of my voice. I'm not saying my voice was high pitched and different, but I just couldn't make my voice sound at all deep during that time.

Wishful thinking I know, and it was probably in my head, but it does have me wondering.

[Ms. OBrien CVT]

Kathe Perez
Has helped a lot of women.

[Beverly]

Ugh x.x this really does scare me more than the SRS and tossup between Electrolysis or laser or any of it really.

Why? This hurts less.

Is the vocal training something I can teach myself? Or is this something I require a specialist for?

Yes, you can teach yourself to do it. The fundamentals are simple enough, but it requires practice, practice and more practice. Expect it to take a minimum of 6 months. A specialist would undoubtedly help but I can tell you the two basic things you need to do in  a dozen words

- Lose your male chest resonance

- Up your pitch by about 50 Hz

That's it. Those are the two biggest changes. It also helps if you can learn to change your intonation - how you stress and pronounce the words.

I have been practicing my pitch and tone when I've been alone a bit, singing and whatnot, seeing how long I can keep to a higher pitch. Its pretty difficult, and runs me out of breath.

Ahem! Practice, practice, practice.

I recently had a reaction to a certain medication that caused me to lose a bit of weight (168 down to about 160-162 in just a couple of days) and about a few other curious side effects. One of them, I swear, was my voice was a bit different. I don't know how or why, but I really couldn't speak in a low tone at all for a few days... as if someone had cut the cord to the bottom of my voice. I'm not saying my voice was high pitched and different, but I just couldn't make my voice sound at all deep during that time.

Pitch is not that critical. The difference between male and female is as little as 50Hz. Men speak around 110Hz and women at around 220Hz but anything over 167Hz gets classed as female. My voice is generally around 180Hz but because I am tall for a woman (5'8") people expect a lower pitch. If I was squeaking away at 250Hz everyone would stare at me.

Get rid of male resonance - that is the real killer. Put your hand on the top of your chest and talk - you will feel vibration in your chest. Now talk in a high falsetto voice and you will feel no vibration in your chest. You need to remove that vibration at a lower pitch because nobody talks in a falsetto. One way to do it is to learn to lift your Adams Apple (AA).

Put your fingers on your AA and swallow. Your AA moves up so there are muscles attached to your AA and you need to learn to use these muscles. Keep your fingers on your AA and move your tongue up and to the back of your mouth and you will feel the AA move up. Experiment with this. Once you can lift your AA try talking with it lifted and using a slightly higher pitch. The chest resonance should be greatly reduced.

Practice, practice, practice.

Then work on intonation. Listen to women talk. In particular pay attention to the dentals - t and d and also the letter s. Women tend to pronounce their t's and d's quite hard and clearly. Listen to the letter s - it tends to be quite sharp. Men mumble these letters.

Get that lot sorted out and working for you and you will more than halfway there, but it takes practice and there will be a lot of frustration and failure on the way.

[Firecat]

Does this come to feel more natural over time? Will it one day be possible to do this without thinking about it?   ALSO! Is there a way to measure those numerical readings on your voice from home? That would be so handy!

[Shantel]

On the other hand, FtM Hormone therapy will turn a natural girl voice in to a deeper masculine voice rather quickly. I recall a young FtM that used to attend gender group meetings that was very feminine with a very female voice. He went on Testosterone and wound up with a face full of whiskers and a basso voice within half a year. I was astounded!

[Beverly]

Does this come to feel more natural over time? Will it one day be possible to do this without thinking about it?

Yes it does. You just need to train you muscles. I take it you have been trying it yourself?

ALSO! Is there a way to measure those numerical readings on your voice from home? That would be so handy!

Yes - you can use PC based software called a Spectrograph. Go here http://www.transforum.org.uk and scroll down. Plug a microphone in and you are all set. The image below shows my female voice on the left and my male voice on the right and it was virtaully the same phrase for both. One was this is my female voice and the other was this is my male voice.



A number of differences are immediately obvious. The male voice is lower in tone and the overtones are about 70Hz apart. The female voice has less to work with (no chest resonance) and the overtones are spaced further apart (about 200Hz). This is why a female voice sounds different. In terms of pitch it is not that much different. Resonance and intonation are what make the big differences.

[Julie Wilson]

Hormones may help a little with the voice, gradually and over time but you can't count on it.  I know that I can no longer tell my mother's voice from my father's voice on the telephone anymore, they are older, menopause has probably made my mother's voice deeper and my father's own lack of testosterone production due to age has caused him to sound a bit more like my mother.

Voice is part physical and part training.  Think of when you began going through puberty (if you can remember) and how you had to train your developing voice.  Also some people put more development into their voice than others, think radio announcer.

Training your voice may seem daunting but if you can learn to simply keep your voice up in the top of your head with the famous Rach technique over time you will just develop a female voice without effort.  (In my experience)  That and perhaps a little help from hormones or elfin magic

[A]

By the way, my psychiatrist says that in his experience, HRT has a modest effect on voice. Nothing that will change your voice from non-passable to passable in all realism, but he says it has a small effect.

But yeah, you'll have to train and try. Some manage without professional training; some need it. If you don't want to spend the fortune voice therapy costs, you can still try by yourself. Just make sure you don't overdo it, damaging your vocal cords.

I've been training since my voice began to change in the beginning of my adolescence, so I don't have much to say in terms of tips for starting from scratch. All I can advise is to try to imitate singing patterns and voice actors. It made me realise some key elements that made my singing better, and my speaking more confident.

[Firecat]

It may take me a bit to learn how to use that program, but it looks very promising. Vocalization really is the scariest part to me... I'm very withdrawn, extremely shy about hearing my voice on recording, and have lots of trouble speaking "normally" in public... not to mention just last year I moved back in with my incredibly biggotted (in all things gender) mother, and have had a hell of a time keeping this all a secret from her after a botched attempt at a "hypothetical" question regarding cross-dressing...

I'm going to do my best to try training my voice, starting with the very basics on a PDF I found in the Spectrograph zip folder. Honestly, I'm just thankful my voice only just sounds male, and its not too husky or harsh or horse or any other H words you can think of.  Does anybody perhaps know of any other online tutorials I can look at, just so I can judge the common methods and see what works best?

[Stephe]

Your therapist is an idiot. Sorry but they are. Getting a female voice was far and away the most important part of my transition. You can look like a Disney princess, but if you have a guys voice people are gonna treat you like a man. If you really are a woman, you do not want to look like a woman yet sound like a man and be treated as such. Been there done that. Also HRT will not change your voice. Your vocal chords have developed and HRT doesn't change them. I would venture to say you could not really be very passable but if you have a great voice, everyone would gender you as female. It's that important.

I had a professional therapist help me but you can do it on your own. I used this program called sing and see, helped me a lot and was simple to use. it just takes a LOT of practice and listening to yourself. I got this simple "pitch pipe" electronic box off ebay to hear my target pitch before I started and a digital voice recorder to listen to myself. Females do have different speach patterns so it helps to go somewhere and just listen or listen on TV closely for the differences in how they pronounce words. I did most of my practice when driving but did some at home too. I was living full time at this point so could practice in real life too. It took be about 6-8 months to get a really good voice and no, I never have to even think about it. It's my natural voice now and I would have to make an effort to try to sound like a guy now. I do "tune up" in the morning in the shower to stretch my vocal cords but that's it.

[Pippa]

Couldn't agree more Stephe.  My voice and intonation is in my mind the most crucial part of my transition.  There is no point in looking passable if you sound like a docker.

I addressed this with the gender clinic and my GP.  Both agreed and requested speech therapy, only to be turned down by the local NHS trust.  I was told I could go to London for treatment (directly through that trust) but the cost would be more than going private.

I have been told that GP commissioning should solve this and that the new national commissioning body will create a level playing field.

[Beverly]

I have been told that GP commissioning should solve this and that the new national commissioning body will create a level playing field.

I would love to think you are right.... I hope you are right, but we are dealing with NHS bureaucracy here.

[Pippa]

BRC.

My GP wants to commission voice therapy for me but is being blocked.  When she is in charge of the commissioning the only stumbling block will be if the national commissioning body blocks speech therapy.  As this is a relatively cheap and quick fix, offered by many trusts, hopefully they won't block it.

[Beverly]

I hope it works out Pippa. I managed to do my voice on my own and with some help from my local TS group. I am sure it can be improved but in day-to-day use it seems to work well enough.