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Voice training is awful, what's wrong with me?

Started by ablouky, February 18, 2015, 12:33:57 AM

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ablouky

I'm really struggling with voice. I wish I could say it's my main struggle in transition, but it's not. Four months in on HRT and everything is a struggle. Transition is kind of hell for me, maybe I'm just broken.

But specifically, voice. As I type this, I'm getting stressed out, agitated, dysphoric, just thinking about it.

I am currently full time, do not pass and all that fun stuff. Voice is very iffy. I do not have a passable female voice. Probably not even close. Training my voice has become a huge source of stress for me and I don't understand why. It's hard to train and speak correctly. I don't even think I'm doing it right, I've started seeing a vocal coach because I can't do it alone.

In the meantime, I've tried to adjust my normal speaking voice to be more of a female resonance. I'm extremely insecure about it. It sounds fake to me, it sounds more like a gay man than anything, and it's obvious that it's not the voice I had before. I have to talk to coworkers every day that don't agree with what I'm doing (transition) and think that I'm crazy and making a mistake. This makes it even harder to adjust and transition because I know every little thing I do is being criticized.

Dysphoria is insane with my voice. I slip back into my male voice usually out of insecurity, or because using a female voice feels wrong.

This freaks me out because shouldn't using a female voice feel right? It doesn't. It feels fake. It takes so much effort and control, and it just feels like I'm a fraud and I'm faking it. These feelings compound until the stress and dysphoria make my head hurt. I slip back into my male register in defeat and sadness, and feel dysphoria because my voice is male.

The fact that my voice naturally comes out male bothers me, and makes me dysphoric. Using a more feminine voice makes me feel like a fraud. I wish I could just open my mouth and have a girl voice come out, and be comfortable with it. But it doesn't work that way.

Training my voice at home gets me so frustrated and upset that sometimes I cry. It's hard to do. I record it, thinking it will be decent, play it back, and it's so bad I'll want to throw my laptop across the room.

What is wrong with me? It's messing with me so bad it makes me feel like I'm not a real girl. Like I'm just a total fake. It's an awful feeling. When I try at work I can feel the judgment radiating from the jerks I work with, but they are only mirroring my own thoughts inside my head ("Look at him trying to talk like a girl, he's pathetic, when's he going to give up this charade")

I'm working with a therapist. But one session a week isn't cutting it. I feel so beyond broken and hopeless. Can anyone relate? Does this ever end? Am I just not supposed to be a girl? Am I just not trans?
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Amy85

I'm sorry you're having such a rough time :( And at the same time your post sounds like exactly where I'd be if I decided to try and transition... one of my nightmares. I hope you find a way through the dark feelings and thoughts, just don't give up! Give your vocal coach some time to help and maybe even look into other options like surgical procedures? I think there is a post somewhere on this board about one that sounded promising... but hang in there :) There's bound to be light at the end of that tunnel!
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Jen72

First off early on I this transition thing but I do feel your pain even though I wont be experiencing it yet.
That being said after I read  your post there is one thing that may help beyond the  actual voice training or surgery. I realize this is easy to say not easy to do but what I read is that you are just plain stressed on this and understandably so. But if you can find some thing whatever it is to relax it should come easier and with time more confidence in doing your well anything really. It could be to think of something or something as stupid as take a couple of deep breaths. I realize something simple but it might help trying to hard might be the problem you may need to focus on something else even for a minute to relax. I know if I was in your position I would be tensing up and with that my whatever I wanted to do would not come out right. My only experience is I was a cook and trust me if you thought too much on things that's when things went wrong didn't think on it too much things went smooth. No not same thing but...

Sometimes the simple answers help the most:)
For every day that stings better days it brings.
For every road that ends another will begin.

From a song called "Master of the Wind"" by Man O War.

I my opinions hurt anyone it is NOT my intent.  I try to look at things in a neutral manner but we are all biased to a degree.  If I ever post anything wrong PLEASE correct me!  Human after all.
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DeanJulian

You ARE a real girl, and don't let anyone tell you otherwise! It takes a lot of practice to train your voice, I've been trying to get mine deeper to pass as male, and I can relate, 'cause it gets frustrating and dysphoric, but don't lose hope. I suggest maybe taking a few seconds of just breathing and relaxing when you feel yourself getting frustrated with it, think of the good it will do, and then maybe try again? Anyway, hope everything works out for you :)
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Joanne Feliz

If you really have issues with your voice and no matter what you do you cant get it right you could try getting 'voice lift' surgery.
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Muffinheart

What you relate as an experience was me back in 2009. I was working with a speech therapist and tried so hard to make every session count. She specialized in Trans folks and was highly recommended. I would practice and practice, but I found myself always falling back to my deeper voice. I constantly struggled with having to think before speaking, and when I made mistakes, I became frustrated. I stopped seeing her after spending about $800.
I came back the following year....same thing.
Then something changed in 2011....I can't explain it, but for some reasons I began to care less and less about my voice. The less I cared, the more my confidence rose.
Now here I am, don't give a hoot about my voice because I know that's one tiny element which doesn't impact my day to day living.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
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katrinaw

Its hard ablouky, changing your voice pitch and keeping it in pitch and unbroken is hard, I am using iPhone App's but struggling too.

Thoughts: Go to a Voice Training professional, or as I will do (when financially able) book into the Yeson clinic in Seoul...
For the moment I will keep practising.

Don't give up tho... It will happen for you... stay positive  :-*

L Katy
Long term MTF in transition... HRT since ~ 2003...
Journey recommenced Sept 2015  :eusa_clap:... planning FT 2016  :eusa_pray:

Randomly changing 'Katy PIC's'

Live life, embrace life and love life xxx
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ChiGirl

I was talking with my therapist yesterday and he suggested I start working on my voice now.  It takes a long time.  One of the best tips I got was worrying less about the pitch and focusing on your cadence.  Women tend to have a more "singing" voice while men tend to be flatter.  There's a ton of YouTube videos that can help.  I looked up feminine voice and got a bunch of options.  I started listening and took the advice I found helpful. 

You're definitely in a tighter spot, but as MuffinHeart said, when you stop worrying so hard it can come more naturally. 

And, most importantly, listen to DeanJulian.  You ARE a girl no matter what you sound like! 

Good luck and hugs!
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jeni

I am also worried about my voice, probably more than anything else about eventually trying to pass, and I have not done more than a little bit of toying around. Even that was a month or so back (I've been busy with other things). So I can't speak from experience post-transition or having conquered the voice challenge, but I have spent a lot of time thinking about this.

Nothing is wrong with you. Your voice is a major part of your identity. People recognize each other by voice, you have been hearing your own voice every day for as long as you can remember, and most likely you never thought about how to make it sound like it does. Most people just talk how they talk, and whatever that sound is, is them. It's really unnatural to set about changing that, and it digs at the core of your self identity. It is entirely reasonable to find it difficult to change this!

The identity/psychology thing is tough. I have very mixed feelings about it, both for myself and for others who identify me with my current voice. But I think I will end up changing it. It will be weird for a while, but eventually I am confident that I and others will adapt. It's happened before---I had a different voice when I was 10, I sounded funny for a while, and now I barely remember the old voice. I don't think the fact that I'm making a conscious choice to change my voice makes any difference.

The fact that most of us just speak in the way that developed without conscious effort, voice training and practice is really alien. We don't think about controlling the muscles that we use, we just talk and something comes out. Our brains haven't bothered mapping how signals to various muscles translate into movements or sounds, nor have they worked out how those movements translate into sensations. So it's like trying to write with your foot, blindfolded. You know what you are trying to do, but no matter how much you think about it, you can't just will your body into producing that result

My daughter is learning to talk right now. It's cute because baby, but ignoring her age, objectively she is really terrible at it! You ask her to say "peanut" and she says "eenorff." That's almost entirely wrong! But she doesn't get frustrated, she's proud of her achievement. It had the right rhythm and the vowels were close. And she'd be really happy if you asked her to say it again 300 times in a row. Her body has to learn, from no experience, what it feels like to make sounds, what sounds that she hears are her own voice, and how to use that to reproduce a word someone else said.

You're better off in some ways, because you have the rules down, but there's no way around the practice to close the loop between muscle, sound, and sensation. That's going to take time and effort, and until you get fairly good at it, the results will not often be pretty. I think it's probably like learning to play a musical instrument. My experience there is that you have to practice consistently, and you have to practice properly. It's neither essential nor possible to play something correctly the first time you try it. If you try to learn a piece by starting at the first measure and playing note by note, getting frustrated and starting over each time you make a mistake, you will never get anywhere. You do the best you can each day, and you concentrate on fixing one problem at a time. After a while, things start to click, and even though you didn't stress yourself out seeking perfection, you found your way inch by inch to the goal.
-=< Jennifer >=-

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Phyliciaraine

I am right there with you. I couldn't do it alone either. One thing that I can advise, does your vocal coach know what they are doing? Have they helped MtF before? I know mind has not but she is learning with me. Even with her "knowing" what to do right off the bat I am still getting better. One thing she told me is that your voice will go through many sounds before it is done and one of them is the gay man sound lol. Don't give up, be paitent, it will come. I tried  on my own for almost 2 years and had all but given up.
In Your Journey, The Most Amazing Person You'll Find...Is Who You Become.
~Phylicia~

My wife's blog wifeoftrans.wordpress.com

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Sunderland

Sweetheart, what you're experiencing sounds very normal to me. Especially for those of us who have deeper voices. Your voice will sound female eventually, but vocal training is a very slow process and takes lots of dedication and practice. You're not going to notice any sort of real shift short-term. My understanding is that it can take many, many, many months of dedication, and it will feel like you aren't accomplishing anything, but you are. It just takes time. Yes, you are a woman. Your "male voice" is the one that feels natural right now because it's what your vocal chords are used to. It's going to take time and effort for them to feel natural and comfortable in a more feminine tone, but it will eventually start to feel natural as you get used to it and gain confidence. Please don't give up. I promise your voice will sound how you want it to if you stick with it. This often seems to be the part of transition trans women struggle with the most. It'll be okay. You are not a fake. You're bravely authentic. You're striving to be yourself in spite of the challenges. *hugs*
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April_TO

First of all, I just want to acknowledge your dedication, courage and grace to handle it all. It takes patience my love and persistence to achieve it. I swear it's going to be worth it in the end.

I was totally in your shoes this morning more in the context of giving up the whole transition idea. I do however have a high pitch voice and have been seeing a therapist for awhile now but what defeats me is my own internalized transphobia.

We all have our struggles babe. In the end what matters most is the authentic YOU. Voice is just a component of transition - it isn't the be all and end all of it.

Stay beautiful and cheer up!

Sending all the good vibes!

April


Nothing ventured nothing gained
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Kellam

I have only just begun, still in stealth, but I am already working on my voice. It is a deep baritone and prone to hoarseness. I was in punk bands, yelling, for years plus all the chainsmoking. It, my voice, is second in dysphoric discomfort only to the man bits. But I am gonna keep at it.

I have been relating it in my mind to how I learned to draw the human form. I started by copying the exaggerated bodies of comic book characters. I just drew them over and over. When I turned to drawing from life, I knew all the ins and outs but could tone down from the cartoonishness of my prior source material.

Do the "gay man" , the "breathy ingenue " and the "Minnie Mouse" long enough (at home) and when you go to speak without focusing so hard, something more natural will eventually come out.

I could be wrong of course, but that's my theory and how I'm proceeding. I also intend to get surgery one day.

I have also been listening to a lot of cis female altos. A woman my hight, 5' 10" shouldn't be a soprano anyway!
https://atranswomanstale.wordpress.com This is my blog A Trans Woman's Tale -Chris Jen Kellam-Scott

"You must always be yourself, no matter what the price. It is the highest form of morality."   -Candy Darling



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Ashey

I had a lot of trouble when I was starting out. I thought for sure I was just going to go mute, because my voice was causing me to not pass. But eventually I realized I had to talk if I was going to go full time and be out by myself, ordering food, etc. So I started speaking in the best feminine voice I could muster, and just talked kinda quietly and briefly. Eventually, my friends and family told me that what I thought was a 'fake' and barely passable female-voice was actually a normal-sounding female-voice. I had a hard time believing it, and still do sometimes, but sure enough I was getting it right all along. After sticking with it for many months I found my voice had actually changed and my 'natural' voice was pitched higher. But I 'naturally' use my new voice anyway. I've even had people tell me my voice is sexy, and I can sing pretty well with it too. When I record myself it's hard to believe how natural it sounds. All this after I swore I'd never get it and I'd be mute forever. Sometimes you just gotta have some confidence and take a leap of faith. I was so sure my voice sounded unnatural but I was just being too harsh on myself. Just try to relax and have some self-confidence and maybe you'll get there quicker than you think. :)
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