The "Does my voice pass?" thread

[Zeda]

Your voice is really soft, but I think you're still resonating from your chest. I'm not an expert, so take this with a grain of salt, but I think the next thing you should work on is raising the resonance from your chest to your head.

Here's my attempt:

https://soundcloud.com/princess_catherine/voice-205

I was told before that my pitch was too low, so that's the main thing I've been working on lately. I've managed to get it all the way up to a D4 on the scientific scale. I don't really hear any masculinity in this voice, but others might hear it differently. What do you think? Is it good? Where could I use improvement?

D4 is pretty high for a speaking voice o.o My spouse has a fairly high pitched voice (and he has worked it down all the way to the B3/C4 range since I met him). I believe my voice, after some training, is around an A3 (with a note in either direction). You sound like you are going too hard at it, and it is sounds falsetto to me. You should bring your voice down to a range where your speaking isn't so pinched and constricted

EDIT:
@Blue Senpai: You sound like a boy in the early stages of puberty. You occasionally slipped into a more feminine sound, but not enough to throw it off much.
@Ryan55: You definitely sound like a guy You sound like a guy around 16 or 17 years old, more specifically. Ky (my spouse, he's a genderqueer person) remarked that you sounded like you were trying to force your voice lower, but that is something a lot of guys do when their voice is deepening Kinda limbering up those vocal cords, stretching the throat cavity stuff. I wonder how you will sound in a few more months. 1.25 months already... T is pretty potent stuff!

[krista2007]

Hey everyone,
Can I please get yals opinion of my voice. I have been practicing for about 2 months now. And if someone can please check the average hz of my voice. The only thing I have right now is a spectrogram on my phone and it says I'm normally around 220 hz. http://soundcloud.com/krista-croy/sounds-from-tuesday-night

[Jennygirl]

riversong- I tend to agree, it sounds a little falsetto and a bit unnaturally high. D4 is very high for a speaking voice, female fundamental pitch is usually anywhere from F3 - B3 so you could definitely come down a bit and that would help. Chances are, this is also right where your break is between chest and falsetto voice, so I can understand if it is hard.

It is better though to use the upper range of your chest voice to avoid it sounding unnatural or forced up there

krista- I think your pitch is right where it needs to be, you could work some on changing your pitch up and down more frequently.. that would help. Also it is slightly nasally, I think probably because of the way you are modifying the resonance? Try to relax the muscles not required to raise your larynx. Try placing a finger on your adam's apple and feeling the position of your larynx. Then, try to relax different sets of muscles until you find just the one set that raises your larynx- that might give you a better larynx position to hold. After a while it will become second nature to relax the muscles surrounding

When I modify my resonance, I am basically raising the very back portion of my tongue, but if I raise too much in the middle of my tongue it starts to sound nasally. Imagine lifting the very back of your tongue up and back

[Blue Senpai]

D4 is pretty high for a speaking voice o.o My spouse has a fairly high pitched voice (and he has worked it down all the way to the B3/C4 range since I met him). I believe my voice, after some training, is around an A3 (with a note in either direction). You sound like you are going too hard at it, and it is sounds falsetto to me. You should bring your voice down to a range where your speaking isn't so pinched and constricted

EDIT:
@Blue Senpai: You sound like a boy in the early stages of puberty. You occasionally slipped into a more feminine sound, but not enough to throw it off much.
@Ryan55: You definitely sound like a guy You sound like a guy around 16 or 17 years old, more specifically. Ky (my spouse, he's a genderqueer person) remarked that you sounded like you were trying to force your voice lower, but that is something a lot of guys do when their voice is deepening Kinda limbering up those vocal cords, stretching the throat cavity stuff. I wonder how you will sound in a few more months. 1.25 months already... T is pretty potent stuff!

Yay! I've been getting comments that I sound like a 12-13 year old boy.

[antonia]

I'd say you need to slow down just a tad bit, I have a really hard time with that myself because my brain is racing at 1000mph but my tongue can only do 100mph.

- Antonia

Hey everyone,
Can I please get yals opinion of my voice. I have been practicing for about 2 months now. And if someone can please check the average hz of my voice. The only thing I have right now is a spectrogram on my phone and it says I'm normally around 220 hz. http://soundcloud.com/krista-croy/sounds-from-tuesday-night

[krista2007]

I'd say you need to slow down just a tad bit, I have a really hard time with that myself because my brain is racing at 1000mph but my tongue can only do 100mph.

- Antonia

Ya I know I have always had issues talking fast due to a mixture of ADHD and aspergers

[Two Bodies/Same Soul]

http://vocaroo.com/i/s0hh1oFnCwpC

Have at it folks.

[antonia]

If possible you might want to try to improve your Mic setup and audio quality, there was quite a bit of feedback and noise which makes it hard to tell.

http://vocaroo.com/i/s0hh1oFnCwpC

Have at it folks.

[the bore worms]

OK - looking for some input.  I've been working at this pretty consistently for several months and I feel like it's semi-workable but at the same time I'm not very satisfied with it.  I also am feeling a little lost in the sense that I've had some professional coaching and I feel like he's kind of out of tricks, so to speak, so I'm not sure what I should be doing at this point.

clicky click click

[antonia]

My two cents:

I think you sound really good, all you need to do is add a little breathy-ness and perhaps emphasise your "S"es a little more, think Marilyn Monroe singing Happy Birthday but not that extreme.

OK - looking for some input.  I've been working at this pretty consistently for several months and I feel like it's semi-workable but at the same time I'm not very satisfied with it.  I also am feeling a little lost in the sense that I've had some professional coaching and I feel like he's kind of out of tricks, so to speak, so I'm not sure what I should be doing at this point.

clicky click click

[the bore worms]

My two cents:

I think you sound really good, all you need to do is add a little breathy-ness and perhaps emphasise your "S"es a little more, think Marilyn Monroe singing Happy Birthday but not that extreme.

Thanks for the input!  I went back and listened to your sample and I kind of agree with the prior comment about chest resonance and your own about inflection and such.  Have you gone to a speech therapist?  I'm not thrilled with my voice but it really was helpful in the early going to get me focused on head resonance.

[ThePersona]

Ave, this thread is just about getting our voice to a place we're happy with Higer, lower or whatevs makes you happy is all good.

Brc, thanks so much for uploading my first impression is that I'm listening to a female speaker I do notice a little bit of vocal fry happening, I wonder if perhaps you're tired when you recorded this or it could just be a totally normal feature of your voice. I absolutely love your accent!

A new cis female thing is vocal fry at the end of sentences in America, so that could be a cultural thing.

[antonia]

I've just been working on my voice at home and reading up on everything online, right now my voice isn't my biggest concern but as I move more and more out of the androgynous zone I might find a speech therapist to work with be it online or local. I think getting an early start on voice work is helpful though since it's one of the hardest thing in our transitions and takes months of practice.

Thanks for the input!  I went back and listened to your sample and I kind of agree with the prior comment about chest resonance and your own about inflection and such.  Have you gone to a speech therapist?  I'm not thrilled with my voice but it really was helpful in the early going to get me focused on head resonance.

[Ryan55]

D4 is pretty high for a speaking voice o.o My spouse has a fairly high pitched voice (and he has worked it down all the way to the B3/C4 range since I met him). I believe my voice, after some training, is around an A3 (with a note in either direction). You sound like you are going too hard at it, and it is sounds falsetto to me. You should bring your voice down to a range where your speaking isn't so pinched and constricted

EDIT:
@Blue Senpai: You sound like a boy in the early stages of puberty. You occasionally slipped into a more feminine sound, but not enough to throw it off much.
@Ryan55: You definitely sound like a guy You sound like a guy around 16 or 17 years old, more specifically. Ky (my spouse, he's a genderqueer person) remarked that you sounded like you were trying to force your voice lower, but that is something a lot of guys do when their voice is deepening Kinda limbering up those vocal cords, stretching the throat cavity stuff. I wonder how you will sound in a few more months. 1.25 months already... T is pretty potent stuff!

thanks zeda, i appreciate it, yeah T is pretty powerful, its funny people notice the changes, but when it comes to myself, I have a hard time seeing or hearing the changes, maybe cause I'm around myself so much (if that makes any sense lol)

[Ephemeral]

thanks zeda, i appreciate it, yeah T is pretty powerful, its funny people notice the changes, but when it comes to myself, I have a hard time seeing or hearing the changes, maybe cause I'm around myself so much (if that makes any sense lol)

Have you done recordings to track your progress? I recommend it. It's really fun to go back and see how much you've changed.

[JCardiff]

A new cis female thing is vocal fry at the end of sentences in America, so that could be a cultural thing.

Something I actually have been trying to get rid of, even T doesn't change that, it's apparently habit not chords.

[JCardiff]

Well here's my attempt at uploading, I only have my iPhone to use so I'm not sure how to upload Voice Memos to anything, if anyone knows a sure fire way please tell me.

Voice.m4a

[Blue Senpai]

Well here's my attempt at uploading, I only have my iPhone to use so I'm not sure how to upload Voice Memos to anything, if anyone knows a sure fire way please tell me.

Voice.m4a

There's no link I can click for that.

[JCardiff]

There's no link I can click for that.

Was afraid that would happen... Any ideas how to upload audio files from either my email or from iPhone (if email I'll just email myself the file and upload it) it would have to be .m4a format though.

[JCardiff]

There's no link I can click for that.

Was afraid that would happen... Any ideas how to upload audio files from either my email or from iPhone (if email I'll just email myself the file and upload it) it would have to be .m4a format though.

Nvm I figured it out... I hope... Ok let's try this.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/rzjb83stxyhv48s/Voice.m4a

That should work.

EDIT

You will need Dropbox to view it though, sorry, it's the best I can do at the moment.