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The "Does my voice pass?" thread

Started by Isabelle, September 19, 2012, 02:14:55 AM

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anjaq

Ah thank you for the feedback. I was not aware that resonance still is so much of an issue as I kind of tried to focus a lot on resonance in the past and much less on pitch. I recently tried to get resonance out more but I got a feedback that I sound "too soft" in a way that "women do if they want to be really nice", so I kind of went back from that somewhat and thought about doing something on pitch, as i usually am semi-comfortable only in the 160-170 Hz average range and quite often go down to 140 or so if I am with people I know well. This is of course in part because I can put a number on that with praat, while resonance is more elusive, unless someone knows how to analyze resonance in praat?

What i know I am doing is that I sometimes loose resonance control - so I get short moments where I loose resonance and then it sounds a bit like I am getting a cold or something :( .

Ok, so I will try another series with different resonance control and stick with the 160 Hz for that (140 Hz I have to avoid somehow though). I need to be at home to do that though, so later...

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Mlle. Glistenburg

"Human beings are no longer born to their place in life, and chained down by an inexorable bond to the place they are born to, but are free to employ their faculties, and such favourable chances as offer, to achieve the lot which may appear to them most desirable."
― John Stuart Mill
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anjaq

Jamie, I think it is a bit hard to analyze because of the rather noisy recording. It sounds ok to me, but its more like listening to someone on the phone and probably a lot of the frequencies are missing in such a recording.

Aina - I tried to get the resonance away even more but could hardly do it without sounding totally speechless (breathy, low volume,...), so I am not sure I can do a lot more on that :( - do you happen to know an exercise to play with that even more? I kind of am tempted to put in my original voice to show the difference but somehow am afraid of doing such a recordning and put it online. Its at about 110 Hz with loads of resonance. What I noticed however is that if I get rid more of resonance, praat will give me a higher average pitch. I kind of suspect that praat counts in any resonance as pitch as well so I am actually having a higher pitch in some recordings but that is "pulled down" by the added resonance. Can that be, or was that just by chance? I mean I tried a recording in a "head voice" kind of thing and deliberatly lowered pitch - it still was rated by praat at 180. I think setting it on "cross correlation analysis" helps to get it more realistic.
http://vocaroo.com/i/s1xiyOvKr4dd

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Mlle. Glistenburg

"Human beings are no longer born to their place in life, and chained down by an inexorable bond to the place they are born to, but are free to employ their faculties, and such favourable chances as offer, to achieve the lot which may appear to them most desirable."
― John Stuart Mill
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Jennygirl

Anja- I think what is most likely occurring is the pitch shift that commonly happens just by modifying resonance. By using the muscles to achieve a smaller voice chamber, you are probably also slightly tensioning your vocal cords. It is pretty hard to separate the two. When you have proper resonance, it's definitely easier to speak higher as well.

Both of you ladies are sounding really good! Though there is a hint of falsetto in both of your voices, like you are using your head voice. I'm not sure if it's enough that it's a problem because it does sound pretty natural and blends seamlessly with your chest voice, but it still sounds like a little like a head voice nonetheless. Just something to think about :)
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anjaq

Thanks Jenny. I value your opinion a lot as you have done a lot on voice. I think the falsetto thing comes in when I try to really get rid of resonance and overdo it - I sadly never did proper voice training so I am not sure how to actually find out what is chest voice and what is head voice. Probably I am trying to do a head voice as in some isntructions on voice they are mentioning stuff like trying to "speak like the voice is coming from the nose" or something like that. And chest voice sounds to me like there would be a lot of resonance in it what I was told to avoid like the plague. So do you know some exercise to do a chest voice but without the resonance and avoid head voice at the same time?

P.S.: And just to have said that - pleas be very critical with me everyone. I dont need any reassurance of having a good voice at this stage. I have been postop for 13 years now and need to get this sorted out without any feelgood stuff, so if something needs improvement, tell me. My voice is probably responsible for >90% of the times I do get identified as having a trans past, so I need to get this fixed. And if resonance is an issue, then I need to work that out - as there is no other way than training it seems, surgery is only about pitch after all.

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Mlle. Glistenburg

As I have told others and will post here...

These are the two resources I have used to get where I am today (and yes, you have to pay for the voice analyzer, but it is worth every penny):

http://www.genderlife.com/voice-consultation/free-finding-your-female-voice-workbook/

http://www.sygyt.com/en/order
"Human beings are no longer born to their place in life, and chained down by an inexorable bond to the place they are born to, but are free to employ their faculties, and such favourable chances as offer, to achieve the lot which may appear to them most desirable."
― John Stuart Mill
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anjaq

Ok. I may consider those. I am currently going through the lessons of "deepstealth" at youtube, are they similar? I also am thinking I will look into getting a prescription for voice rehab, if that is possible - maybe I have to pay it myself though, I need to find some transfriendly people who prescribe and/or perform this though. I think if i pay for it, I'd prefer it to be 1 on 1. If i cannot get that I may try the commercial CDs.

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Mlle. Glistenburg

"Human beings are no longer born to their place in life, and chained down by an inexorable bond to the place they are born to, but are free to employ their faculties, and such favourable chances as offer, to achieve the lot which may appear to them most desirable."
― John Stuart Mill
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A

Sadly it's not doing it at all for me. Sounds like falsetto. Y'need to aim for a lower voice register.

For some people, it works better to work your way down from falsetto. Others will have much better results by working upwards. Try both, I guess.
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anjaq

What you are referring to, A? You mean Jamies and my recordings?

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A

anjaq, uhm, I was talking to Mlle. Glistenburg (who funnily PMed me saying she passed well although she was insecure about it), but sadly I think I can roughly say the same thing about your voice. I'm sorry, but to me it's not a pass. But then again, many - nay, most - people will be "fooled" by a voice that to me is only a gross, almost pathetic, approximation of a female-ish voice, something a lot worse than your voice. Or will recognize that the person is trying to sound female (as opposed to actually sounding female) and treat the person as female because of that.

So especially for those many trans women who struggle to find a passing voice, listening to me might bring more self-loathing than improvement. After all, I really do have a good voice that I can sing decently in female ranges with, that people usually can't find anything wrong or male with even though they knew I was trans and were expecting something else entirely, yet sometimes I doubt it and notice this little mini millimeter-sized male-ish thing. So you'd expect my standard for passing to be above average. If your voice works, it works.
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anjaq

Thanks, A. Its not unexpected. You probably are right with what you say and I am painfully aware of that. i tried to improve some things in the last couple of recordings, but it seems not to work, so I guess I will need to do something about it. And no, it does not pass well. It is the #1 by far reason I get "soft clocked" or even as this year in August misgendered. At least that is what I think currently. The weird thing is that I was told to do well during transition - I am not sure if people were just not honest and trying to be polite, but i think it was a lot better and I lost much - i read you can get some damage by modifying the voice too much over too long times. So can you pinpoint what you think is off in it? Resonance? pitch? inflection? i intend to look for a speech therapist soon to make some progress and as you @A have read I also seriously consider surgery for the first time since I transitioned 13 years ago as I feel that this cannot go on now. I am 13 years post of fer gods sake and still get in trouble for my voice, along with al the insecurity and fear of talking too much that comes with it. Screw that.

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A

Uuuuuuuuuhm. Seriously, it's beyond hard for me to pinpoint things when it comes to sound. It's weird actually, given how I'm supposed to be good auditorily and that I grasp foreign language pronunciations rather well and all, but when it comes to sound itself (as compared to communication and speech), it becomes really hard for me to give details. Lemme try still.

How did you work your voice? Apparently there are people who'll get good results working down from falsetto, and others for whom it won't work well, and those will try to work upwards from their basic voice. Maybe you should try the other way if you've been doing one.

So uhm, details. To me it sounds like you're "trying too hard", and it doesn't sound natural. Sounds like you're trying to imitate some high court lady's artificial speech, and to begin with that might be the wrong target. Also it's like you're so afraid of sounding wrong that you strongly limit your voice, and how monotonish it makes you sound is not good. Really, it sounds like you're limiting yourself too much.

Maybe you haven't been able to find your head voice, your head resonance? I hear you having almost no resonance (which contributes to the "princess wannabe" impression), and then when I do hear the resonance (for example, the first word, "okay"), it sounds really deep, even if it's not very strong. A bit like if you were trying to emulate head resonance with partial, weak chest resonance, which doesn't work because they don't sound the same at all, I think. How about you try starting from down low, from your normal male voice, and gradually going up in a single sound until you can't feel the chest resonance anymore?

Basically, your voice is very restrained, and I think it might pass better if it was less restrained, even if then in other criteria it wouldn't pass as well. With a voice that's more free that sounds natural, you can get rid of that enduring "trying too hard" feeling that plagues your voice. In fact it might be the only way to get rid of it. Then, from this new starting point, you can figure out ways to improve the wrong parts, which will probably not be easy, but those things, contrary to working from your current starting point, sound possible to me at least.

Sigh, I feel like a fake telling you this, considering that I didn't consciously do that sort of work on my own voice and don't really know how it's supposed to feel. Can't even access the male voice I know I'm physically capable of producing... >.>
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anjaq

Thanks for the advice, A.
Honesly I have a hard time accessing my "male voice" as well. After such a long time. The last recording and actually all the ones except the very first two I posted are indeed me trying to "improve" which obviously did not work that well. If I dont, I end up with a more full voice at about 140 Hz, which is +30Hz to my "male voice" - at least the "male voice" that comes out now if I try to do it. But +30 is not enough obviously.
The way i worked at this when I started was to do that falsetto thing and work my way down and it seemed to work out ok. I got a decent voice for some years with that, but lost it over the years. I think probably it always was quite low on resonance overall, so to you it probably would not have passed. I am a bit confused about the resonance now - so to get that right - there is a chest resonance obviously which is that deep rumbling sound that goes with speaking in the "male voice". This has to go and be controlled (as i understand it  that is so even in those who assist voice change with the knife). But then I have not enough resonance to make the voice full, so I need to replace that resonance with something. Is that right? I think that is where my attempts fail as the "falsetto and then go down" thing did only eliminate resonance. Now what to replace it with - you say "head resonance" but on the other hand I have heard that its a bad idea to speak in a "head voice" as it sounds not good either. So what is it then with the resonance that one should use or not use - chest vs head resonance, chest vs head voice - I get signals that both are wrong as chest=male and head=fake. :( Maybe you can clarify that to me.

I just wrote an email to ask for good voice trainers in the area, I hope someone there can help. All this recording and listening to it really makes me cry a bit. I treid to ignore my voice issues for a long time but now I cannot and I hate to hear myself. Sorry for the rambling.

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A

Uhm, well a head voice does indeed tend to sound less natural than a chest voice, since it's the voice that you'll generally sing with. But then again it's not so bad. A head voice is what most women (most people?) will use when speaking to someone they're not familiar with and want to make a good impression on. When doing a job search call for example you can be sure I'll be mostly using my head voice.

Basically, the way I understand it, there are three kinds of voices: the chest voice, which is the relaxed voice that most people will speak with most of the time; the head voice, which is a clearer kind of voice that resonates elsewhere, less deeply, used for when more clarity or precision is desired; and the falsetto, which has some volume but basically no resonance at all, and can be stretched downwards and modified to sound more natural, but mostly will always remain what it is: basically only useful for screams and funny imitations, and, if trained especially, for singing (think surprising opera feats and YouTube video of a man singing Celine Dion very well). But it will always remain ill-suited for speaking, I think, because no matter how much strength and depth you manage to add to it, its very nature is to lack resonance, and resonance is important in natural speaking. You can try to camouflage its lack of resonance by dimming its volume so that it loses its distinctive Mickey Mouse feeling, but but that's about all.

A head voice is less casual and natural than a chest voice, but contrary to falsetto, it can be and is used for speech.

So, for the resonance... yes, there are two kinds of resonances. They roughly fit with the voice types, but not fully, I think. While the chest voice is mostly called that because it feels like it comes from the chest, it can sort of integrate head resonance as well; vice versa for head voice. Chest resonance is how your chest vibrates and you feel like your sound is resonating and getting its depth and strength below your throat. Head resonance is weaker, but it feels like the voice resonates in or above your throat. They overlap and mix somewhat, but mostly head voice is head resonance and chest voice is chest resonance.

So uhm, if you make a sound that's gradually higher from your lowest possible note, with your hand on your chest, normally (hopefully) at some point you'll feel your chest resonate noticeably less. There's a chance that at that point your voice will hit a "break" and you'll need to interrupt the sound, reajust your vocal cords and start again. At that point you'll be hitting your head voice.

Thing is, even though for a maximum natural feeling having a passing chest voice is best, not all trans women can do that. And actually, some natal women will communicate mostly with their head voice, even with their friends, and it's not the end of the world. So you should concentrate on getting a passable head voice, and then consider trying to get a more natural, passable chest voice.

You should also note that by going down from a falsetto, what you end up with is either a modified falsetto (which I feel is what you have), either with a head voice that you slipped into by sliding down. Either way none of those is a chest voice (your chest voice is the lowest of the three, and even though there's overlap, it just doesn't make sense that you'd start from falsetto, the very extreme upper limit, and reach chest voice.
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Mlle. Glistenburg

Wow, the first critical criticism in a long time. I am both offended and overjoyed! Haha. If things "improve" as you would like A they will come in time and if not I am happy with what I have. There is a dear old friend of mine who is trans* as well and she still has a masculine voice, but it works and she oddly never gets mis-gendered for some reason. Anyway, thanks for the comments.
"Human beings are no longer born to their place in life, and chained down by an inexorable bond to the place they are born to, but are free to employ their faculties, and such favourable chances as offer, to achieve the lot which may appear to them most desirable."
― John Stuart Mill
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anjaq

Thanks for explaining, A.
I think I cannot use my chest voice and resonance as they are at the low end range of the male pitch, so I will most likely have to focus on head voice. As I am not a singer at all, never was, I probably have not developed that well enough though. Which may be why when I try to get there I get no resonance and thats not good obviously.

Quote from: A on September 29, 2013, 02:20:10 PM
falsetto, which has some volume but basically no resonance at all, and can be stretched downwards and modified to sound more natural, but mostly will always remain what it is: basically only useful for screams and funny imitations, and, if trained especially, for singing (think surprising opera feats and YouTube video of a man singing Celine Dion very well). But it will always remain ill-suited for speaking
Ok, that was quite harsh, but there is no point in not being. So conclusion of that is that I need to find my head resonance and add it to get a proper sounding head voice?

QuoteSo uhm, if you make a sound that's gradually higher from your lowest possible note, with your hand on your chest, normally (hopefully) at some point you'll feel your chest resonate noticeably less. There's a chance that at that point your voice will hit a "break" and you'll need to interrupt the sound, reajust your vocal cords and start again. At that point you'll be hitting your head voice.
Did I get that right that basically the head voice is what is above that cracking point? Meaning I would have to go to that point, go over it into the high pitch and then from there keep that head voice while getting pitch to normal? Basically I think that is what the method I tried to learn this with seems to say - go up in pitch until the chest resonance goes away and then go down in pitch without adding chest resonance. I guess with some people head resonance is added at that point automatically, for others not. So how to get head resonance then.

QuoteThing is, even though for a maximum natural feeling having a passing chest voice is best, not all trans women can do that. And actually, some natal women will communicate mostly with their head voice, even with their friends, and it's not the end of the world. So you should concentrate on getting a passable head voice, and then consider trying to get a more natural, passable chest voice.
I doubt I can get a passable chest voice. The resonance there is very deep and not usable at all for this. Or can one actually change the chest resonance?


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Jennygirl

Great writeup on the chest/head registers, A!

I was mistaken, I thought head voice = falsetto but that is totally not the case!

Well, you learn something new every day :D
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A

There are (or should be) two breaking points in your voice. One between the chest voice and the head voice, and one that leads to falsetto. And actually, when you enter the "head voice" area, you shouldn't have to lower your voice much if at all, especially with the voice of someone born male. The confusion can come from the fact that many male-born people (that is, male singers and MTFs alike) will kind of jump straight to falsetto from chest voice, for some reason. I don't really understand it, but then again, there's a lot that I don't understand. Maybe it comes from the fact that in singing, the two can sound actually similar and be confused for each other depending on how they're used - which in male singing will often be similar, and the head voice will be used with a lot of power, constrasting with what you're trying to accomplish. (Found that out trying to find a helpful video for you but finding only singing, often opera, tips. I also find that video makers seem to contradict each other on what head voice and falsetto are which is funny.)

As for modifying chest resonance, uhm... I guess it's about getting a little bit of it while having head resonance too? Not sure.

Now uhm, maybe these links can help. There's this guy who's for some reason trying to imitate a girl. It's obviously not quite there, but I think doing what he does could maybe get you to a good starting point from which you can improve.



There is also this that another member posted in another thread:

Quote from: Sierra Belle on September 08, 2013, 07:16:37 PM
I don't know if you've looked in to it, but I literally went to one site and it gave me all the tips I needed, I literally had a perfectly passable voice the very first day. (thought VERY scratchy at first). Frequent breaks were totally REQUIRED.
http://www.looking-glass.greenend.org.uk/voice.htm

If I knew how to send Audio through here, I would send the first thing I used as my beginning benchmark.
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