voice training

[Toni]

I have come to realize just how valuable a more feminine voice can be.  I'm going to have a fair amount of time during srs recovery coming up very soon and want to put the time to good use.  Anyone know of a good program that I can maybe get to use on my laptop and practice while I'm recovering?  I am getting my vocal range up by singing soprano opera and using "throat coat" tea and feeling my vocal range rise in my neck and move toward my head more, so I get some of the basics, but beyond that I'm lost.   Thanks, Toni

[Jessica Lynne]

Good place to start is Kathe Perez's 30 day crash course for Voice Feminization Basics. I believe its about 150 dollars and can be purchased on line at www.30daycrashcourse.com    After you've downloaded the program you'll be prompted to buy a voice pitch synth. You can download these through shareware on the net and put it on your smart phone. There's no need to purchase this and I consider the one she recommends as no better than the free ones available on line. It's all a place to start. Good luck, Toni.

[Michelle_P]

OK, it sounds like you are working at moving away from a 'chest voice' and towards the 'head voice', keeping resonance in the head and throat.

The 'chest voice' vibrates in the upper chest strongly.  Place your hand on your chest and speak, or say "Ooooooooh".  You'll feel the vibration with a 'chest voice', but the vibration vanishes when you find the right way to re-tension the throat muscles to 'move' that vibration into the throat or head.

I use a free app called SingScope (iOS) to check my voice pitch.  The app graphs the pitch over time, and presents a good estimate of how your pitch is changing as you speak.  I target the range A3-C4 for my speech. That's 220-262 Hz, which might be a bit high for some people.  A pitch above G3 (196 Hz) is more likely to read as female than lower pitches, all other things being equal.

The next big items were simply practicing, and practicing more, to keep the pitch up.  When talking, it is very easy to become distracted and let the pitch drop, until we've used the new range so much that it becomes automatic. After many months I am still working on this.

Setting pitch before speaking can be very helpful.  This is just making a little sound that puts our speech in the right range.  I sort of hum "Uh huh" with 'Uh' at A3 and 'huh' at C4 when I begin to speak, and that helps quite a bit.  Again, practicing makes it easier to hit these notes.

I'm also working on pitch control.  Masculine speech tends to drop the pitch at the ends of phrases or sentences.  That SingScope display shows this really well.  Feminine speech tends to hold pitch, or even rise slightly at the end of phrases or sentences.  (This trait can make statements sound like questions; "Hi, I'm Michelle?"; "I'll have a cappuccino?")

And then there is the Holy Grail, prosody.  Feminine speech has much more variation in pitch than masculine.  Listening to conversations, women appear to almost sing to each other, very different than a men's conversation.  I've used SingScope again to watch the changes in feminine speech and try to replicate this.

I have a bunch of practice sentences from my speech therapist that I use to work on conveying emotions along with pitch and prosody.  I've also got Aesop's Fables on my book reader gadgets and phone, and I try to read one of the short stories daily, often into SingScope to make sure I'm holding up OK.

[Toni]

Jessica, Michelle thanks so much, that's a big help and gives a lot to work with.  This'll keep me busy in my spare (yeah right) time.   Toni

[LizK]

Hi Toni

I have had a number of session with a voice therapist and basically what Michelle said is what we did. Moved my speaking voice from my chest to my throat. Don't just think about pitch as that is only one(important) part of the equation. The most important thing I learned was to shift my voice from chest to throat which pitched me around 170 - 200 automatically and with average around 185 I think.

I am a bit lazy about practice however I do find myself switching up into this voice when I leave the house or on the phone....what I need to do is be totally consistent and use it all the time. But in the mean time I practice at least once or twice a week...I do have a goal to be using it fulltime by March next year when I will eligible for further voice training to help refine it. Good luck with your lessons and don't forget to practice practice practice!!

[Toni]

Thanks Elizabeth, I'm getting the picture now.  I'll have to get something to evaluate where my voice is other than my keyboard.  Time to get serious.  I CAN do this!  Toni

[DawnOday]

Voice program
"Eva" for I pod. by Kathe Perez. Is what my voice coach recommended. You can download a guitar tuning program like "Da Tuner" to keep track of pitch  F3   HTZ 175.    https://www.susans.org/wiki/Voice      There are lessons on You Tube.

[Toni]

Thanks Dawn, I'll look into that.

[Rachel]

Kathe Perez has a daily dozen drill that is a 20 minute perfect warm up. I use it in my car on the way to work. It uses the techniques two voice pathologist use that I have gone to. Intonation is not really gone over in the drills. The morning drills is to warm up the voice for the day.

Do not strain your voice. keep your back straight or sit up straight. Keep your head up and do not look down ( keeps the soft tissue streatched between the cricoid and thyroid cartledge). Keep your lungs full of air and start the air going before you speak. Push the air from your tummy (diafram brathing) Do not punch words rather start them soft. Tend to run words in a melody and avoid choppy speach.

Perocial perception is feeling the words. Open your mouth and do motor boats, make faces and feel you lips and jaw move. Words need your mouth, teath and tongue to move to make the sounds. It is intentional and you need to pay attention to the sounds that make your speach and how they feel.

Find a voice you like and emulate it. Hopefully on youtube.

Practice.

If you hum the M and then N sound it will cause a resonance in your nose area. This is the head voice area.

Speaking from your throat and chest is a male voice. Speaking in your head voice is a female voice location.

Intonation is using feeling in your voice to mean different things. Going up or down in pitch while in your head voice at differnet words or syllables of a word shifts the meaning. Woman are very much more verbal than men in general.

Clear articulation and carry through (not mumbling and pronouncing the back part of words and not dropping the last part of a word) is preferred over rate of speach. Speak clearly and with more effort rather than fast.

Choice of words.
tummy not gut or stomach.
Is it time to eat rather than time to eat.
If it is on your way may I have a diet soda rather than another beer or yo beer here.
That blouse is cute rather than you look good.
That scent is spicy or flowery; I like it. Where did you purchast it and what is it called rather than you smell good.
Those earings are cute rather than well guys do not comment on earrings.
I am having non-GMO peanut butter and no sugar added grape jam on 7 grain bread rather than PBJ on white bread extra jelly.

Say the work oh. Now say the word ohhhhhhhhhhh while raising the pitch while using your head voice. It sounds awesome and means I relly understand or that is profound. It has feeling and connects you to the other person. It resonates with the other persons brain. It says female oh. It convays feeling, understanding and connection.

Being a female is awesome.

[Sarah_P]

I started using the Deep Stealth exercises in June, and 6 months later I've raised my general pitch much higher than it was, plus my break is now around 330hz (where you go from a normal voice into falsetto). I bought the DVD + CD, but most, if not all, of the lessons are available on youtube.

https://www.youtube.com/user/deepstealth/videos

I've done the exercises nearly every day, around 30-60 minutes each. I have skipped some days when my throat was sore, especially early on. I worked in a few other techniques from other voice training videos on youtube, too.
My normal female speaking voice is around 220-230hz, which I'm pretty happy with for now.

Also, sing!! I can't tell you how much this helps. I've always loved to sing (probably not that well, but who cares!!), so singing along with female vocalists is perfect for me. I tried singing again in Rock Band, but the vocal tracking on that is so wonky sometimes I'm not sure it helps.

I just spent 2 days in a row using my female voice most of the day, and it's a bit sore today. I really started losing it towards the end of the day yesterday. I need to get it strengthened up, since I'll be needing to use it daily here pretty soon!

[GeekGirl]

Say the work oh. Now say the word ohhhhhhhhhhh while raising the pitch while using your head voice. It sounds awesome and means I relly understand or that is profound. It has feeling and connects you to the other person. It resonates with the other persons brain. It says female oh. It convays feeling, understanding and connection.

This is the single, most important piece of advice on voice ever! The female voice does connect people together. There's a feeling of warmth, candor, and sincerity in an authentic female voice.