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The "Does my voice pass?" thread

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

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Alisha

Yes, i can't reach a higher note yet, and still powerless so i kind of hold the mic too close  ;D but i'll keep practicing.. Thank you anjaq :)
Because God Made Me Special


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Joan

I recorded a voice sample and was going to upload it for critique, but really...having listened again to what everyone else is doing I can't put it up here for shame :) You are all so good! :laugh: How will I ever get here?
Only a dark cocoon before I get my gorgeous wings and fly away
Only a phase, these dark cafe days
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anjaq

Hey - dont be ashamed, maybe the critique will help you with improving it. If you already think it is bad, people telling you that it needs improvement is not making it worse, is it? ;)

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Joan

Ok, yes! Why not? :)

I recorded this just now. I realise now it's payback time on all those cigarettes I smoked in my 20s and 30s  :D

http://soundcloud.com/joanjoan-2/joan-12-12-13/s-eaaTq

Basically I've seen the videos and I'm trying to do what they say but all I get is this thin voice. I can god higher still in pitch but then I can't even hear myself if there's any kind of background noise.

I'm really envious of your high, rich and melodious voices, and love to hear how you do it :)
Only a dark cocoon before I get my gorgeous wings and fly away
Only a phase, these dark cafe days
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anjaq

Ok, so I think yes you are right and it needs more practice. What I feel you have done is to add a lot of breathyness to the voice. You are breahing out the words. Which is a good first step, but you will have to bring that back a little bit to make the voice stronger and louder. I think this breahyness is also why I feel you have little pitch variation and the pitch itself is a bit obscured because of it. My take on the next step would be to see if you can also make a snarling voice like a robotic witch and then find a good point in between. Have you used any teaching videos?

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Joan

Thank you! :)

I've looked at Candifla.

I can't seem to find a comfortable range under the falsetto.  In fact, I can't seem to find where my voice switches over to falsetto. I consider myself a musical person but this is just beyond me and the more I try the further away from it I seem to get. It's very frustrating! :)

Snarling robotic witch...Should I think 'angry Hermione'? :D
Only a dark cocoon before I get my gorgeous wings and fly away
Only a phase, these dark cafe days
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Jane's Sweet Refrain

My computer did not link to your soundcloud clip, but I have to say (as someone who has a passing voice) that I never found the falsetto technique effective for me. Not in the least. Even with my female voice working mainly as I want it to, I still have to make a recognizable vocal leap to get to a female voice using that method.

I long ago read about using the Marvin the Martian voice as a help getting rid of chest resonance. That voice is nasal and closed, but I found it much easier (with considerable practice) to use that as a point of reference. You'll see advice against closing off the voice. That's true and it's not where you want to end up. But I slowly found that I could open up the back of my throat and push the resonance to the front of my face. The transition seems more seamless.

Again, I'm not sure if this method will work for you, but it was an effective angle of approach on the wind-sheared runway of the female voice.

Best wishes to you!
Jane

Quote from: Joan on December 11, 2013, 05:48:09 PM
Thank you! :)

I've looked at Candifla.

I can't seem to find a comfortable range under the falsetto.  In fact, I can't seem to find where my voice switches over to falsetto. I consider myself a musical person but this is just beyond me and the more I try the further away from it I seem to get. It's very frustrating! :)

Snarling robotic witch...Should I think 'angry Hermione'? :D
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Joan

Thank you, Jane :)

The clip was truly, truly awful so I made it go away :D.

I've been trying the Marvin thing and yes it does stop the chest resonance. I will work with it and see what I can do.  I've always had a quite gentle soft and quiet voice, it's just that I've learned to pitch it quite low as something to 'hide' behind. I guess that's one more thing I need to unlearn.

I will keep trying and I will be back here in the future when I've made some progress.

Best to you too, Jane :)
Only a dark cocoon before I get my gorgeous wings and fly away
Only a phase, these dark cafe days
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anjaq

Yes lots of things just have to be unlearned rather than learned. I think that falsetto, withc, martian things are just ways to play with the voice, see what it can do. The falsetto trick is based in part on one thing, I believe. If you are speaking at a low pitch, the vocal chords are swinging completely, there is a lot of mass involved. at a high pitch, there is more stretch and the mass does not swing. For many people there is a noticeable shift between those two modes, sometimes people refer to it as chest and head voice, but that is only partly true I think. So the falsetto method kind of tries to bring you into that stretching-based sound. And then lowering pitch will bring you to a point where the mass wants to come back into play. Now a good voice it seems is if both can be blended together. Thats the theory as my therapist explained it or rather as I understood it. If you do not have that break, see if you can find it somewhere hidden - in a lower or an higher pitch - usually it is not within the normal speaking range. If you still dont have it, maybe your singing just made you already have it go away, then that is quite good, then you should be able to control your voice better already

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Sybil

Quote from: anjaq on December 13, 2013, 04:11:30 AM
Yes lots of things just have to be unlearned rather than learned. I think that falsetto, withc, martian things are just ways to play with the voice, see what it can do. The falsetto trick is based in part on one thing, I believe. If you are speaking at a low pitch, the vocal chords are swinging completely, there is a lot of mass involved. at a high pitch, there is more stretch and the mass does not swing. For many people there is a noticeable shift between those two modes, sometimes people refer to it as chest and head voice, but that is only partly true I think. So the falsetto method kind of tries to bring you into that stretching-based sound. And then lowering pitch will bring you to a point where the mass wants to come back into play. Now a good voice it seems is if both can be blended together. Thats the theory as my therapist explained it or rather as I understood it. If you do not have that break, see if you can find it somewhere hidden - in a lower or an higher pitch - usually it is not within the normal speaking range. If you still dont have it, maybe your singing just made you already have it go away, then that is quite good, then you should be able to control your voice better already
This is entirely true, I've found. I've been refining a passable voice for a long while now and what sounds best to me is not a head voice, but a chest voice that makes use of a lot of tightening. A high-pitched head-voice doesn't sound quite as natural for the base speaking voice.

There is a place for both in conversation, but the head voice -- for me, at least -- is generally used in moments of excitement. Some vibration is necessary.
Why do I always write such incredibly long posts?
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Joan

Thank you Anjaq And Sybil.

All of your input helps and I've been trying to use a natural voice that's pitched higher , but concentrating more on tone and taming resonances. I've been out this weekend and I tried speaking a bit with this voice and it didn't sound too bad to me. I will practice some more and I will be back with a new sound sample :)
Only a dark cocoon before I get my gorgeous wings and fly away
Only a phase, these dark cafe days
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Seras

#751
Hi, still been practicing my voice a bit from time to time. Tryin things out.

Anyway this is where I am at right now.

https://soundcloud.com/olivia1988-1/dec2/s-NRUkC

Any opinions? I didn't do any warmups or anything. Well I made one recording I liked less than this one first and then I made this one, so not much warm up :P
I think it sounds kinda bad at the start but then I ease into it a bit after a few seconds and it starts to sound a little better?

Please don't sugar coat. I can take it!

I mostly care about resonance and tone.

This one is shorter and a bit more low pitched, since that one up there sounds like Mickey Mouse at the start. https://soundcloud.com/olivia1988-1/jan1/s-L8LD9
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KittyKat

Hello all, didn't notice thread before and kinda started a new one, here's what I had there if anyone can give me some feed back. Thanks!

http://yourlisten.com/billy.morris.16568/katherine-2
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GorJess

Hi, whoever reads this...my voice isn't tops, but I sometimes get called out on it, but that's like less than 1% of the time. This is extremely important that my voice works here, it could determine my SRS chances next year (why that is...I'll get back to you on that if it applies, for now, that's personal). Thanks much in advance!

http://vocaroo.com/i/s0BQ4YMBzW7s

PS: Yes, that was quite a silly monologue (cold read); a little humor in these clips goes a long way, right?
You are here in order to enable the world to live more amply, with greater vision, with a finer spirit of hope and achievement. You are here to enrich the world. -Woodrow Wilson





With Dr. Marci Bowers in San Mateo
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Jane's Sweet Refrain

Hi, Very good work for only 1.5 months, which is really a short time. You seem to be doing very well with resonance. And the pitch is pretty much there. And there's pretty good force, so there's no quavering from lack of vocal cord strength or breath. I think the next step is more feminine modulation. The speech patterns of sentences still sound monotonous and more male than you wish. And you don't seem to be using vocal slides in many of your words. Have you been listening to women speaking and repeating after them and recording those patterns to see how you match? I use NPR interviews and videos from Youtube to help me internalize their patterns. This method seems to have helped me once I got the mechanics of voice out of the way. I am 7 months full-time, never as far as I can tell get read as trans, and I still practice using this method, almost every day. It drives my eight-year old daughter a little crazy, but we laugh about it.

Congratulations on the getting through the tough part; now for the tough part. :)
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iconoclast

Quote from: Jane's Sweet Refrain on January 19, 2014, 09:19:47 AM
Hi, Very good work for only 1.5 months, which is really a short time. You seem to be doing very well with resonance. And the pitch is pretty much there. And there's pretty good force, so there's no quavering from lack of vocal cord strength or breath. I think the next step is more feminine modulation. The speech patterns of sentences still sound monotonous and more male than you wish. And you don't seem to be using vocal slides in many of your words. Have you been listening to women speaking and repeating after them and recording those patterns to see how you match? I use NPR interviews and videos from Youtube to help me internalize their patterns. This method seems to have helped me once I got the mechanics of voice out of the way. I am 7 months full-time, never as far as I can tell get read as trans, and I still practice using this method, almost every day. It drives my eight-year old daughter a little crazy, but we laugh about it.

Congratulations on the getting through the tough part; now for the tough part. :)

Thank you. That is what I needed to hear. I do agree my speech is a bit monotonous, but I've always had problems with with - I remember in grade 1 I was asked to read aloud to a teacher's assistant who would grade me on it, and she actually kept getting mad at my for having little expression. I just don't know how, it doesn't come naturally it's it's just not "me" you know? I'm sure there are bio females with the same tendencies. But you're right - it doesn't help my passing. So I'll give it another shot with YouTube videos and stuff.
Your last sentence is reassuring. =P haha. Oh well. Thanks again for the reply!
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Jane's Sweet Refrain

That part about what comes naturally is one of the toughest parts of transitioning. I'm just now becoming more eye, head-shake and sympathetic "aww" expressive. These don't come naturally to me and feel a little artificial at this point. But every cisgender colleague I have uses this technique. And we're academics! I don't feel like I'm making a major sacrifice to learn it. I would have done it naturally had I been cis. So here I am. Here we all are.

Good luck to you. You've already come so far.
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Sarah Rose

Quote from: GorJess on December 31, 2013, 04:50:03 PM
Hi, whoever reads this...my voice isn't tops, but I sometimes get called out on it, but that's like less than 1% of the time. This is extremely important that my voice works here, it could determine my SRS chances next year (why that is...I'll get back to you on that if it applies, for now, that's personal). Thanks much in advance!

http://vocaroo.com/i/s0BQ4YMBzW7s

PS: Yes, that was quite a silly monologue (cold read); a little humor in these clips goes a long way, right?

Sound very passable to me :)
Great work.
~People fear what they don't understand.
~Life Won't Wait: http:// youtube.com/watch?v=jAh_SCjCh8A


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iconoclast

Quote from: Jane's Sweet Refrain on January 19, 2014, 04:38:16 PM
That part about what comes naturally is one of the toughest parts of transitioning. I'm just now becoming more eye, head-shake and sympathetic "aww" expressive. These don't come naturally to me and feel a little artificial at this point. But every cisgender colleague I have uses this technique. And we're academics! I don't feel like I'm making a major sacrifice to learn it. I would have done it naturally had I been cis. So here I am. Here we all are.

Good luck to you. You've already come so far.

Very true, and thanks again. Alright, I will (begrudgingly) give it a shot. Nothing to lose in trying!
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