Got approved funding SRS, dad's loaning money for FFS. Worried about voice :(

[Stephanie G]

So I finally after 3 years of waiting, got approved for funding for SRS. Should be able to book with the surgeon shortly. Plus my dad is getting money for a lawsuit, and said he would loan me the money for FFS. Which honestly is amazing because I don't know if I would be able to do it myself for a long while. So that's a total relief. Though since I should be getting both surguries done this yearish, I have been starting to really worry about my voice. I have been practicing recently, though I don't like have someone to bounce it off of. Constantly listening to playbacks myself, I am not really sure how it sounds anymore. If you guys can give me your honest opinion of it, I would really appreciate it. Any suggestions would be amazing too .
Here is a link.
http://vocaroo.com/i/s0k2FCAGabD3

[KayXo]

Your voice sounds perfectly fine to me. Good luck with the surgeries. 

[Sophia Sage]

Your voice is very good.  Only a little bit of tweaking required... possibly.

First, your pitch is excellent -- it steadily hovers around or above 220hz, and never drops below 188hz.  This is all quite excellent, exactly where we want to be -- anything that stays over 160hz is golden.  Your timbre is also wonderful -- you're not resonating in your chest, you're not frying your voice, it's practically ringing out.  You should have no problems with this voice at all; it's not a voice that will get you clocked.

The only thing I'd recommend is increasing your range and dynamic pitch variance.  Now, this might just be because you're reading something aloud, and kind of fast at that, which makes a lot of people sound stilted, but in this sample your voice is kind of monotone; there's not much variance or musicality here.  Your peak pitch is barely around 280hz, so you're hitting notes between G3 (flat) and C4 (sharp), which covers only four distinct notes and their off-key bookends.  Ideally you should be able to cover a full octave.

I'd search around youtube and find some female podcasters having a normal conversation about something, anything -- pay attention to the kind of pitch variance that occurs in a sentence, and then say that same sentence with the same kind of pitch variance.  You don't have to hit it note for note, but go low where she goes low and go high where she goes high, on a syllable-by-syllable basis.  Practice this for a few weeks until you get the hang of how it works.  There are some places where you can achieve that effect just by slightly smiling. It's lovely figuring out how to end a sentence on a high note without it sounding like a question.

In the meantime try to expand your range -- you can actually go lower, safely down to E3 (165hz), and you'll have your full octave if you can push your high end to E4 (330Hz) which is only a note-and-a-half away from the peak pitch you've demonstrated here.

Take your voice this last step, and it will go from being unclockable to being able to accomplish a reverse clocking, if ever necessary.  You are amazingly close! 

[Lady_Oracle]

I'm not sure if its the quality of the upload or your voice but to my ears its very breathy/whispery, if you can raise the volume, sound a bit clearer and still maintain your register and pitch then yes you're close.

[Stephanie G]

Your voice is very good.  Only a little bit of tweaking required... possibly.

First, your pitch is excellent -- it steadily hovers around or above 220hz, and never drops below 188hz.  This is all quite excellent, exactly where we want to be -- anything that stays over 160hz is golden.  Your timbre is also wonderful -- you're not resonating in your chest, you're not frying your voice, it's practically ringing out.  You should have no problems with this voice at all; it's not a voice that will get you clocked.

The only thing I'd recommend is increasing your range and dynamic pitch variance.  Now, this might just be because you're reading something aloud, and kind of fast at that, which makes a lot of people sound stilted, but in this sample your voice is kind of monotone; there's not much variance or musicality here.  Your peak pitch is barely around 280hz, so you're hitting notes between G3 (flat) and C4 (sharp), which covers only four distinct notes and their off-key bookends.  Ideally you should be able to cover a full octave.

I'd search around youtube and find some female podcasters having a normal conversation about something, anything -- pay attention to the kind of pitch variance that occurs in a sentence, and then say that same sentence with the same kind of pitch variance.  You don't have to hit it note for note, but go low where she goes low and go high where she goes high, on a syllable-by-syllable basis.  Practice this for a few weeks until you get the hang of how it works.  There are some places where you can achieve that effect just by slightly smiling. It's lovely figuring out how to end a sentence on a high note without it sounding like a question.

In the meantime try to expand your range -- you can actually go lower, safely down to E3 (165hz), and you'll have your full octave if you can push your high end to E4 (330Hz) which is only a note-and-a-half away from the peak pitch you've demonstrated here.

Take your voice this last step, and it will go from being unclockable to being able to accomplish a reverse clocking, if ever necessary.  You are amazingly close!

Thank you for this, it is exactly the kind of feedback I was looking for . I know I still have work to do but is this more what you mean? http://vocaroo.com/i/s0XjYCpbN4uu Just more natural varitations?

One other question since you will probably know what I mean, you are talking about an octave of range in a speaking voice. Though my range without going into falsetto or singing is like from about 400hz down to 150hz ish without breaking timbre. So how would I figure out a mean frequency to use that best fits me?

Your voice sounds perfectly fine to me. Good luck with the surgeries. 

Thank you, I am kinda nervous and excited all at the same time.

I'm not sure if its the quality of the upload or your voice but to my ears its very breathy/whispery, if you can raise the volume, sound a bit clearer and still maintain your register and pitch then yes you're close.

I can project this voice, just my microphone isn't the greatest.

[Sophia Sage]

Thank you for this, it is exactly the kind of feedback I was looking for . I know I still have work to do but is this more what you mean? http://vocaroo.com/i/s0XjYCpbN4uu Just more natural varitations?

Yes, more like that, though that's not quite what I mean.

In general -- not always, for there are certainly exceptions -- men tend to use volume for emphasis, while women tend to use pitch (volume is instead used to convey emotion).  So, until you get used to it, think about which words in a sentence are the most important, and express those words with higher pitches than your baseline.  Leading words at the beginning of a phrase, on the other hand, tend to get lower pitches, and everything else falls more or less in between. 

So, for example, using the first sentence of the Rainbow Passage, this is how I would say it (exaggerated, perhaps, for effect).  I'm using rainbow colors to depict changes in pitch -- yellow is baseline, green is low, orange is high, and red is peak pitch. 

When the sunlight strikes raindrops in the air, they act like a prism and form a rainbow.

The greatest words of emphasis for me are "prism" and "rainbow" because they are the most striking concepts to get across, so they get peak pitches in their primary syllables.  When possible, I try to use "rising action" for effect, like in the "in the air" where each syllable gets a higher pitch.  Of course it's possible to emphasize different words, depending on how you want to get the concepts across so as to indicate what you think is most important in the sentence, or what you think is most important for your listener to get out of the sentence. 

It takes practice doing this, because in normal conversation we can't think about pitch and talk at the same time, at least not effectively.  But eventually, as with all practice, it starts to sink in and happen automatically. 

One other question since you will probably know what I mean, you are talking about an octave of range in a speaking voice. Though my range without going into falsetto or singing is like from about 400hz down to 150hz ish without breaking timbre. So how would I figure out a mean frequency to use that best fits me?

I still think 220hz makes a lot of sense for "base" frequency, unless you're a really small woman.  220hz is average for the female population as a whole (at least among English speakers) and average is going to actually be ideal in terms of how other people process your voice. 

But do try to hit those notes above 330hz in normal conversation.  In this last passage your peak was up to 300hz -- push it just a bit more! 

Also, and maybe this is the crappy microphone or just reading aloud, but I struggled to pick up your enunciation in that last passage.  Women tend to speak with much more precise enunciation than men -- think "sharper" in terms of the clarity with which words are spoken.  And when reading aloud from a passage, it helps to go just a bit slower. 

Actually, I think it's better to not read aloud.  Just talk -- even if it's to describe what techniques you're trying to focus on for a particular segment. 

"I'm working on my musicality right now, and I'm, like, really not sure if this is how I want to come across or not?  But that's why I'm recording this, so I can play it back and listen and find out what I'm doing right and what I need to work on.  Voice training is such a pain in the butt, and OMG did I really just hit that note?!?  I can't even--"

Speaking off-the-cuff, rather than reading aloud, provides more insight into how our natural voices are actually coming across.  A lot of people struggle to sound like they normally do when reading from a passage -- you might recall from grade school how kids reading aloud sounded like automatons, just trying to get through an onerous task.  Unless you're a good storyteller in general, I think speaking extemporaneously is of greater benefit when it comes to voice training and analyzing your results.

[Stephanie G]

Yes, more like that, though that's not quite what I mean.

In general -- not always, for there are certainly exceptions -- men tend to use volume for emphasis, while women tend to use pitch (volume is instead used to convey emotion).  So, until you get used to it, think about which words in a sentence are the most important, and express those words with higher pitches than your baseline.  Leading words at the beginning of a phrase, on the other hand, tend to get lower pitches, and everything else falls more or less in between. 

So, for example, using the first sentence of the Rainbow Passage, this is how I would say it (exaggerated, perhaps, for effect).  I'm using rainbow colors to depict changes in pitch -- yellow is baseline, green is low, orange is high, and red is peak pitch. 


The greatest words of emphasis for me are "prism" and "rainbow" because they are the most striking concepts to get across, so they get peak pitches in their primary syllables.  When possible, I try to use "rising action" for effect, like in the "in the air" where each syllable gets a higher pitch.  Of course it's possible to emphasize different words, depending on how you want to get the concepts across so as to indicate what you think is most important in the sentence, or what you think is most important for your listener to get out of the sentence. 

It takes practice doing this, because in normal conversation we can't think about pitch and talk at the same time, at least not effectively.  But eventually, as with all practice, it starts to sink in and happen automatically. 

I still think 220hz makes a lot of sense for "base" frequency, unless you're a really small woman.  220hz is average for the female population as a whole (at least among English speakers) and average is going to actually be ideal in terms of how other people process your voice. 

But do try to hit those notes above 330hz in normal conversation.  In this last passage your peak was up to 300hz -- push it just a bit more! 

Also, and maybe this is the crappy microphone or just reading aloud, but I struggled to pick up your enunciation in that last passage.  Women tend to speak with much more precise enunciation than men -- think "sharper" in terms of the clarity with which words are spoken.  And when reading aloud from a passage, it helps to go just a bit slower. 

Actually, I think it's better to not read aloud.  Just talk -- even if it's to describe what techniques you're trying to focus on for a particular segment. 

Speaking off-the-cuff, rather than reading aloud, provides more insight into how our natural voices are actually coming across.  A lot of people struggle to sound like they normally do when reading from a passage -- you might recall from grade school how kids reading aloud sounded like automatons, just trying to get through an onerous task.  Unless you're a good storyteller in general, I think speaking extemporaneously is of greater benefit when it comes to voice training and analyzing your results.

I appreciate the time you taking to give me this wonderful feedback . Training your voice is such a pain in the butt, like unlearning and relearning new mannerisms with regards to the voice is really difficult . Anyways everything you said makes sense, and very helpful.

The one thing I really should work on in enunciation though I don't know where to start on that, I have like always slurred my words, and that's compounded by the fact I have a lisp. Though what you were saying with regards to pitch variance makes sense though I think it might have to do with what you said and it being a read statement, instead of off the cuff. So here is me speaking off the cuff. http://vocaroo.com/i/s1J3FJDXje5J

On a side note I know people browse these forums without commenting etc. Just thought I would include this to show where my voice came from.

https://clyp.it/wbicgrhq

As you can see I started off with a pretty low voice even for a male. Anyways just wanted to put this out there not sure it will help anyone, maybe give people hope. Idk. Anyways ya.

[kariann330]

One thing I have noticed is if you have an Xbox or Playstation, you can get on a private chat with friends that you are out too and ask them for their opinions as well. I had a friend who thought she was passing because of always being referred to as female over the phone, but as soon as she got on Live and watched a livestream she was in realized that she still had a lot of work because of sounding like "a very feminine man" (her words not mine)

I have always heard that if you want to know how you really sound, the phone and Xbox live is a great way to find out