Female-sounding voice vs the Bee Gees effect

[mk400]

I heard a Bee Gees song the other day and it made me realize that you can have a really high-pitched voice but still sound discernibly male, and I was wondering what exactly you need to do to avoid that. I don't want people to be able to tell by the way I use my walk that I'm a woman's man. (i'm sorry)

I actually like my normal voice a lot, it's kinda shaky and timid sounding and I think it's fairly cute, but I worry that it'll stand out too much once I go through HRT and start wearing girlier clothes and, you know, develop breasts and all that. So I wouldn't mind having at least a more gender-neutral version of it while possibly still retaining some aspects of it that I like, but I don't know how to talk in a higher pitch without it just sounding like...well, like a guy just talking in a higher pitch. I've seen videos, like this person's, who, when she talks in a lower pitch, it doesn't even sound like a guy, it just sounds like a girl talking in a lower pitch:



Also I've read through various threads here and seen the recommendation to talk in head voice but that girl actually advises against it and if you can get results like that without using head voice then, well, yeah. But even following her advice I just can't seem to figure out how to sound like a girl, rather than sound like a guy trying to sound like a girl. Admittedly I've done very little practice so far but I'm still unsure of how to proceed.

[Dayta]

I don't want people to be able to tell by the way I use my walk that I'm a woman's man. (i'm sorry)

Ha ha ha, I'm so glad I didn't have a mouthful of coffee when I read this.

L

[becky.rw]

There are a LOT of ciswomen who have voices that are substantially lower in pitch than my regular, as-developed, voice; however the tonal inflections in the sentence structure and the place I naturally produce resonance make it rare for it to be assumed female.    When I concentrate on these, thinking of speech as a song with notes, and pull the resonance to my face, poof, girl voice.

Problem is, I can't maintain both and simply choose, or it sounds artificial and fake.

Unless your born male voice is bass I/II, I think you'd get better result concentrating more on the "song" and resonance of a feminine voices, as opposed to the average pitch.

Just my take on this..

[mk400]

There are a LOT of ciswomen who have voices that are substantially lower in pitch than my regular, as-developed, voice; however the tonal inflections in the sentence structure and the place I naturally produce resonance make it rare for it to be assumed female.    When I concentrate on these, thinking of speech as a song with notes, and pull the resonance to my face, poof, girl voice.

Problem is, I can't maintain both and simply choose, or it sounds artificial and fake.

Unless your born male voice is bass I/II, I think you'd get better result concentrating more on the "song" and resonance of a feminine voices, as opposed to the average pitch.

Just my take on this..

Wow, that sounds...complicated. I'm not even sure what you're talking about for the most part; Bass I/II? Pulling resonance to my face? I should probably be familiar with those terms since I'm a musician but I'm not.

It sounds like I'll either need voice therapy or to really delve in and try to figure out what to do based on videos and recording my own voice (of which the second option sounds far more appealing to me). So far my only practice has been saying things out loud while driving since I'm in a temporary living situation that makes it harder for the moment to be able to practice this kind of thing without someone noticing, and it's mostly just been me practicing hitting notes to songs I know to try and get a feel for my range. What I've discovered: It doesn't go up very high. Hopefully that won't be a problem if what you said is true but, yeah, this seems difficult (not that I didn't expect it to be).

[becky.rw]

The hardest part, I think, is the resonance.    Find some arched stone to stand under so you get good sound and sing a non-vibrato tone in the middle of your range.   When you fill out the sound, if you're cismale/transfem, using the voice your learned as a kid, you should be able to feel a sustained vibration in your chest.   This is true whether I'm singing a high b-flat (low alto range, top of T1) , or a bass is singing a table rattling note down in the gutter.

You have to move that resonance, up into the face, and feel it across the cheek bones.

As to sentence structure, if you have some experience writing music, listen to how ciswomen talk, in normal conversation, and map the pitches of each syllable onto the staff.   Its honestly melodic.   What makes it fem is not so much the average pitch, but how much they move the pitch from syllable to syllable.

[Dena]

If you don't have an exceptionally low make voice, you need the head voice, sufficient inflection and some breathiness. The inflection requires both range and breaking up syllables into different pitches. A feminine voice is musical as opposed to the relatively flat voice that men use. One girl on the site was able to hit 250HZ but because she lacked the inflection, it sounded male. A lower pitch and more inflection would have sounded more feminine

[Michelle_P]

Yeah, it's all the styling, rhythm and inflections, from using less certainty in speech ("Uh, yeah" vs "Yes!"), to the breathiness and little 'squeak' of rising pitch at the end of sentences.  That's hard.

I've gotten my normal speech up from 140 to 180 or thereabouts, and am working on simple strength there, maintaining it without accidentally breaking lower.  I can see where the 'head voice' and 'chest voice' terms come from as I try to remain aware of my pitch and where I feel the vibration coming from.  As I get better at this I'll try to move the pitch up and develop strength there.  I do public speaking from time to time so this is going to get interesting.  An hour lecture up here at this pitch is a little scary right now.

Once I get some strength at pitch, I hope to be able to work with a speech therapist on feminizing the voice.

Well, that's the plan right now.  I'll have to wait and see if it survives contact with reality.

[Rhonda Lynn]

My voice still isn't perfect after all these years. Someone told me recently that it sounded authentic, but to me I still hear those undertones. I don't want to discourage anyone, I'm more saying it's a marathon. Plan to work at it and keep working at it. It will get better and better if you do.

Dena's points are good. Breathiness is a good way to add some feminization. While you do need to get your pitch into the female range, it doesn't have to be extremely high if other characteristics are feminine.

When I'm in a group of women, I pay close attention to their tone and inflection and become a bit of a mimic.

Shows like "The View" and other talk shows are great to watch for practice. Even if you only watch snippets on YouTube. Listen to how they say things and try to repeat it in the same melody and similar tone. Even if you have to be lower in pitch, if you can say it in the same rhythm and inflection. While you're at it, study their body language. Notice how they smile when they are looking for agreement, raising eyebrows inquisitively. Off-topic, I know. But women communicate differently... The more of the whole picture you can learn, the less it's going to matter if you happen to have a deep voice. Kirstie Alley has a deep voice too.

If you like to sing - and OMG - I sing all of the time - sing in a higher range. We lose our range as we age if we don't exercise it. I can still manage about an E4 without singing falsetto, but I aim for about G3 when I'm speaking these days which is 196 Hz. I was speaking at a somewhat lower pitch and decided to work on bringing it up a bit.

Anyway, sing your heart out and sing like the woman you are!!! Your partner may leave you but the next one to come along will love your singing or at least pretend to and be much better for you!! (that's my sense of humor... just ignore it)

[mk400]

Very helpful notes from all of you, the differing pitches throughout syllables especially is something I never thought about before, I'll have to keep that in mind.

Upon further thought, though, I actually wouldn't at all mind having a voice similar to this person (yes I stalked through random tweets from a QT trans girl to find an example of this type of voice): https://twitter.com/_JSmol/status/745059825143382017

You can still tell it's technically a male voice and it's not super high pitched but the way she talks is really feminine and I think it's really cute, and I'm aiming for kind of a mix between feminine and androgynous rather than full feminine anyway. So I should probably worry even less about pitch, it shouldn't be difficult at all to raise it at least to that pitch but the actual way of talking is something I need to work on.

Oh, and as for singing in a high range since I still wouldn't mind being able to do that; I tried to sing a certain song an octave higher than my normal voice would and I COMPLETELY hit a wall when it came to the upper notes, it feels like my voice is just totally incapable of doing them, whenever I try I can't even pronounce the syllables, it's just a quiet struggle-filled throat noise.

Also I'm still not totally sure what you all mean by breathiness/resonance...and I've briefly tried the head voice thing just out of curiosity and I hit a similar wall, I can't seem to get to the "mickey mouse" range at all.

[Dena]

It a matter of tensing up the muscles between your jaw and your larynx. These are the same muscles you use when you swallow and they may not give you a full octave but might give you about 3/4 of an octave. Without forcing your voice, you can find this range by saying Eeeeeeeeeee in you male voice and then raise the pitch. At some point your voice will break on the your way up the scale. Above that break point is the head voice. The important thing is this isn't done by tensing your vocal cords and when you are in the head voice, your vocal cords will be relatively relaxed.

[mk400]

It a matter of tensing up the muscles between your jaw and your larynx. These are the same muscles you use when you swallow and they may not give you a full octave but might give you about 3/4 of an octave. Without forcing your voice, you can find this range by saying Eeeeeeeeeee in you male voice and then raise the pitch. At some point your voice will break on the your way up the scale. Above that break point is the head voice. The important thing is this isn't done by tensing your vocal cords and when you are in the head voice, your vocal cords will be relatively relaxed.

Hm, I'll try that when I get the chance.

Does anyone have any recommendations for an android app to aid in this, by the way? I can easily find a simple recorder thing to listen to myself but let me know if you know of anything fancier that would help.

[Dena]

I use PitchLab on my  iPhone and it is available on a number of different platforms. If you are going to something more complex, Praat in the stickies in the voice section is a useful PC or Mac program.

[becky.rw]

I use "DaTuner pro" on android.  its simple and accurate as far as I can tell.

[DawnOday]

I use PitchLab on my  iPhone and it is available on a number of different platforms. If you are going to something more complex, Praat in the stickies in the voice section is a useful PC or Mac program.

You can also download Da Tuner for androids. It measures pitch and appears to be quite accurate. My voice coach gave it thumbs up.

[Rhonda Lynn]

...
Also I'm still not totally sure what you all mean by breathiness/resonance...and I've briefly tried the head voice thing just out of curiosity and I hit a similar wall, I can't seem to get to the "mickey mouse" range at all.

For breathiness, think Marilyn Monroe. She put all that extra air through her larynx as she spoke. In the extreme, you are whispering the words. Another example is Liv Tyler. A little bit of breathiness helps. Experiment with it, don't overdo, of course. I add a little more on the phone to cover undertones.