Voice issues

[Amoré]

I have been practicing my voice for the last month very hard and can sound female very easily but there is only once catch. I can only get it right when I am alone or when I am recording myself. The moment I have to talk to someone or talk over the phone I default to a much deeper male voice. I was so embarrassed today when a woman called me for a job and she said "but you sound like a man". I just don't know why I do this and then to get it back to female is impossible while I am talking to the person.

I don't know how to shake this man voice. I am so frustrated I want to scream and sometimes end up crying because I work so hard on it and then I end up not making any progress when I talk to someone.

Have you guys got any tips that can just help me shake the tendency to default to a male voice.

[Denise]

A trick my voice therapist gave me was to have a sentence to say BEFORE answering the phone.

There sentence she suggested is:
    "My mother made lemon muffins"

Then answer the phone with the same voice.  After a pause in your speech hummm an "mmmmmmm" to move the voice forward.


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[Dena]

One month of practice isn't enough to lock the voice in. You already have the feminine appearance so use your voice every time you talk. After you use it for a few months it will become habit and after you use it long enough, you will need to force your voice to the male range if you want to the male range.

[esphoria]

I had the same block at first, When I practiced my female voice I had a passage I would recite to practice. When I first started using my voice I had to recite a bit of it, eventually I just had to think the passage and now it just natural.

I had a very similar experience with singing and playing the guitar at the same time, I relate this because what you're trying to do is similar, at first during practice you are just focusing on your voice and how it sounds, but when you engage in a conversation you not only have to watch your voice, but you need to ....well engage in the conversation. Eventually like guitar it will become second nature where you rarely if ever have to think about it but at first it takes a great deal of concentration.

Start with easy conversations, even with yourself in front of the mirror just saying whatever is on your mind or with a friend. I promise you it gets much easier.

[Allie24]

It took me a year to be able to hold a normal conversation with my voice. The thing is, it is not just changing your pitch, but also your speech patterns and inflections. You are already used to speaking a certain way with a certain vocal pitch, and if you continue to speak that particular way, then your pitch will fall into its natural range.

I have a few tips you can try:

The first is an exercise that I did all day everyday (in the car, in the shower, in my room, etc., etc.). I would repeat the line "Mia was driving" and have my voice come out of my mouth and nose, rather than my chest (which is what causes the low resonance in a man's voice). There are plenty of videos explaining this technique if you google voice training. I'm not sure what techniques you are using but I would check these out if you haven't already.

The second is having realistic expectations in terms of how high your voice will actually get. If you are already past puberty there is only so high your voice will be able to go, but this does not mean you can't sound female! As I said before, it is all in the inflections and patterns of speech. Watch movies and TV shows and observe how the actresses in them use their voices and imitate their inflections and behaviors. Also, find a "voice model" you can emulate. I chose actresses Laura Prepon (she plays Alex in Orange is the New Black) and Zooey Deschanel, because they have fairly deep voices and I found that I could pretty easily match their pitch and maintain it, then I observed how they spoke and based my inflections off of that. I knew I was successful when a customer at work told me I sounded like Laura Prepon lol

Hang in there, it is one of the hardest things to change, but like they say, practice makes perfect! And I really mean it when I say that observing other women in real life and media is so so so helpful! None of us have grown up in a vacuum, we all pick up our behaviors through observing others. It is the same for trans people, the difference is that what cis women have learned at age 5 some of us are only just starting to learn past puberty.

[Amoré]

Hi guy's well I have to admit I have a little sentence that I say before I talk in my female voice. "This is the voice I want to use this is my female voice". I made a typo I am actually at it for two months that I am trying to change it. It is the hardest thing to change. The strange thing the inflections is female. People asked me when I was a guy if I am gay. They are just natural to me. I don't really observe other woman I am just me being female comes so natural to me that I don't even try. I had to try to be a guy gauge every move I made to try and pull off being male. So all I am struggling with is my voice now.

[Amoré]

I made a lot of progress in one day with my voice I just switched over on some unexplained way and now I talk in a female voice all the time. My fiance said it still sounds a bit pushed but at least I sound female now.

[RobynD]

I have been practicing my voice for the last month very hard and can sound female very easily but there is only once catch. I can only get it right when I am alone or when I am recording myself. The moment I have to talk to someone or talk over the phone I default to a much deeper male voice. I was so embarrassed today when a woman called me for a job and she said "but you sound like a man". I just don't know why I do this and then to get it back to female is impossible while I am talking to the person.

I don't know how to shake this man voice. I am so frustrated I want to scream and sometimes end up crying because I work so hard on it and then I end up not making any progress when I talk to someone.

Have you guys got any tips that can just help me shake the tendency to default to a male voice.

I experienced the same thing. I've had some good voice coaching sessions but to resist the urge to slip into the old voice when i am tired, stressed, hungry (you name it) takes time to overcome. On the bright side i am overcoming it with time and making steady process. Hang in there.

[esphoria]

I made a lot of progress in one day with my voice I just switched over on some unexplained way and now I talk in a female voice all the time. My fiance said it still sounds a bit pushed but at least I sound female now.

At first it always sounds forced especially if you haven't used it a lot. you need to exercise your vocal chords to handle the higher pitches. if your voice is feeling sore or raspy its time to give them a break... they're sorta similar to any other muscle in your body

[Amoré]

At first it always sounds forced especially if you haven't used it a lot. you need to exercise your vocal chords to handle the higher pitches. if your voice is feeling sore or raspy its time to give them a break... they're sorta similar to any other muscle in your body

You are probably right on this one. I just hate sounding like a guy. 

[Roll]

Can I ask what you've been doing to practice? I'm trying to figure out something that works for me, and have been unhappy with what I've tried so far based on random youtube videos and tutorials on ->-bleeped-<-.

[Amoré]

I used the pitchlab app and started off with humming on 220hz. Trying to keep it there the whole time. When I got that under the belt I started with simple sentinces just trying to keep it at 220hz. You sound like a robot at that stage. Then when I get a feel where my voice should be I started recording myself and try to sound female. I basically started talking about my day and my story how I transitioned and such things while recording myself. But at this stage I try to talk half a day in my female voice until I feel it is tired and then take a break.

[Leslie601]

No matter how much I practice the male voice comes out when I cough or sneeze, Try it you'll see.

Leslie

[Allie24]

The hardest thing for me to change was how my scream sounded (like on roller coasters and stuff). But I've gotten it to a nice, ear-bleedingly shrill pitch since then

[Roll]

No matter how much I practice the male voice comes out when I cough or sneeze, Try it you'll see.

Leslie

I've read that as you use female voice exclusively and the muscles adjust (male voice atrophy) that this issue somewhat solves itself (since the "path of least resistance" for the sounds is now the female range). Can anyone with experience weigh in on this?

[Dena]

The voice is still fully capable of producing the lower notes but you forget how to do it. Before voice surgery I attempted to access my old voice to demonstrate to somebody else. I hadn't use the old voice in about 35 years and I had to force my muscle to relax to access the chest voice. It was as difficult to do this as it was finding the feminine voice in the first place. Now when I want to speak, it's an automatic reflex to access the head voice and I don't have to think about it.

[Allie24]

Exactly what Dena said!

I've been voice training for two years and I can no longer naturally go down to my original voice's pitch. When I try to force a deeper voice, I just sound like a woman feigning a deeper voice.

[rmaddy]

I have been practicing for perhaps 6 months.  The biggest roadblock I have had revolves around work.  The tips, tricks and exercises that I find useful in my home or social practice still take up mental bandwidth at this point.  Since my job involves making life-critical decisions with and for other people, I can't do it unless I'm 100% present in what I am doing.  Eventually, I will alter my voice at work, but the conundrum is that I can only do so when it takes essential no conscious effort and it is all but impossible for the new voice to become minimally conscious so long as I am lapsing out of it for purposes of work.  Slow going...

[echo7]

The coughing, sneezing, and even screaming can and will sound female if you have been practicing your voice for long enough (I'm talking about years, not months).  Once you get to a point where you can speak in a female voice without thinking about it, the other sounds will just come out naturally female as well (in my experience).

[big kim]

I sound like Lemmy from Motorhead! At first I hated it but now I look on it as part of my character like being tall & having green eyes.