My voice is representative of what I hate about being NB

[Rowena_Ellenweorc]

I've always had a low voice for a female.  I started singing at around... eight I wanna say? Yeah that sounds right.  Well in elementary school, they didn't really divide us up into soprano, soprano 2, alto, tenor, baritone, bass etc.  For most obvious reason being we hadn't gone through puberty yet lol.  But they did divide us into part 1 and part 2.  As you can imagine, part 1 was the higher voices, and part 2 was the lower voices.
Middle school, I started out in choir, and yup, you guessed it... me = alto. Then I picked up the flute again (I had started in fourth grade but took a break) and joined the band halfway through sixth grade. So yeah, fast forward to tenth grade, I went back to singing. Women's choir in DC area... yup, you guessed it, still an alto. BUUUUUT I hated being an alto voice so much that I begged my choir teacher to put me as a soprano 2.  He said 'We'll see second semester.' Well second semester... I moved. And got placed as alto because that's where I had been in my old school... never moved up. In fact, by my junior year, I moved lower.... I started as alto 1. Teacher asked us one day to speak, because he needed more alto twos.... yeah, well even in my confused state, he said, 'Alto two, now.' Yeah... I hated it. After that, I just gave up any hope of ever having a more 'feminine' voice.
Now... I look at my voice, and think, if there is any indicator of my being that screams non-binary more than anything, its my voice. I feel like my voice is in a puberty lock, and I'm not even taking hormones... Like I have to try hard to keep my voice even, and not get extreme emotions in any directions, or my voice breaks. And singing? Forget it. Unless I'm in a choir where there is a part that is written expressly for the deepest alto voice imaginable, can't do it. Or unless the piece is written specifically for my voice. But my voice is still awkward for even male parts. (I can sing tenor sometimes, but even then its hard)...

Is it too much to ask that even my voice just pick what register it wants to be? It'd be nice if just ONE THING.... ONE THING... would pick 'hey, I'm female' or 'hey I'm male.' Its really so freaking hard to have this physical being be so 'in the middle.' Can't my voice just be low? Why do I have to work hard to be one or the other?

[Dena]

I am not sure about what you have described. If you are using the chest voice, the head voice would push you much higher. On the other hand, if you are using the head voice, the chest voice would push you in to the masculine range. I suspect your using the chest voice where as many women naturally use the head voice. How much difference is there between the two? MTFs start out in the chest voice and by switching to the head voice, most are able to produce an acceptable feminine voice.

My main example is Karen Carpenter. Her normal speaking voice was her head voice but her singing voice was her chest voice. In her case, the chest voice was the money maker. It set her voice apart from all others as it was deep and rich for a woman's voice. You might try singing along with some of her work and you could find you have been singing the wrong type of music all these years. On the other hand, it's possible to shift your range if you want to put in the work.

[VeronicaLynn]

Well, if you write the song, then your voice always fits....

I like to think I have a pretty large range, and I do singing, though my speaking voice is quite a bit lower than I'd like...it wasn't even what came to me naturally, quite the opposite, I purposely made my speaking voice lower to try and fit in...people did always notice that I my voice changed an octave when I was excited or drunk though...

[Rowena_Ellenweorc]

I am not sure about what you have described. If you are using the chest voice, the head voice would push you much higher. On the other hand, if you are using the head voice, the chest voice would push you in to the masculine range. I suspect your using the chest voice where as many women naturally use the head voice. How much difference is there between the two? MTFs start out in the chest voice and by switching to the head voice, most are able to produce an acceptable feminine voice.

My main example is Karen Carpenter. Her normal speaking voice was her head voice but her singing voice was her chest voice. In her case, the chest voice was the money maker. It set her voice apart from all others as it was deep and rich for a woman's voice. You might try singing along with some of her work and you could find you have been singing the wrong type of music all these years. On the other hand, it's possible to shift your range if you want to put in the work.

I generally speak with my chest voice... I prefer to sing in the chest voice, it sounds better and richer and fuller... but even with my head voice, it doesn't get all that high (unless I'm excitable then it gets back to a squeaky mouse voice haha.) Generally I've found that the easiest for me to sing along to are deep bass voices, obviously an octave higher, and that's generally my range, however, its really hard to find music like that hahaha. (IE if you are at all familiar with Nightwish/Tarot music, Marco's deep voice tends to be where I am comfortable. HOWEVER my favorite song of theirs, Marco pushes his range, so I end up mixing head and chest voice and it just sounds weird to me... But if I sing the female part, even with my head voice I strain.... *sigh* 

Karen Carpenter... I know the name, and I know I know her music because my sister loves her and often plays her music (sis is a freakishly talented musician--even taught at Julliard) but for some reason I can't place any of her work. I'll have to go check it out.

Well, if you write the song, then your voice always fits....

I like to think I have a pretty large range, and I do singing, though my speaking voice is quite a bit lower than I'd like...it wasn't even what came to me naturally, quite the opposite, I purposely made my speaking voice lower to try and fit in...people did always notice that I my voice changed an octave when I was excited or drunk though...

Hahaha if I write the song... yeah, I'm trying to figure that one out.  Never been very good at the whole make my own music thing, but I recently decided it would be fun to try.

I don't try to make my voice low (although, I can make it really low lol, and it scares the crap out of my son. Its sad but in a way funny.) it just is... and I guess, part of the issue, is I'm fighting with myself still about the whole idea of perception.  Like, because I came with a vagina, I have to be feminine, etc... that's how I've lived my life and I'm still trying to let the part of me that says 'screw what people/religion/society/etc says... that's not who you are' win.

[Dena]

There you have your answer. Most women don't use their chest voice as their singing or speaking voice. If you want a higher voice, you need to move back to your head voice. Like many women, your voice will thin out of you do so. If you want a lower voice, testosterone may be the only way to achieve it along with all the other effects.

Men and women use different parts of their brain to speak and that one reason why a woman's voice is more musical than a mans. I suspect along with that comes the difference between using the head or chest voice as the default. I guess it's possible that early exposure to testosterone not only affects gender and sexual attraction but it could also determine how we use our voice. So many theories and so little proof.

[zirconia]

Men and women use different parts of their brain to speak and that one reason why a woman's voice is more musical than a mans.

Hi Dena,

This sounds absolutely fascinating. Do you know what the parts men and women use are? I'd love to hear a bit more.

[Dena]

Hi Dena,

This sounds absolutely fascinating. Do you know what the parts men and women use are? I'd love to hear a bit more.

Unfortunately I don't have a link to that information. When I first came to the site it was in order to learn more about voice surgery and I looked at a bunch of websites picking up all sorts of information. As there was nothing I needed to keep from that site, I moved on without saving a link to it. The argument was that we use different sections of the brain resulting in different speech patterns and a MTF can be trained to duplicate the patterns that don't come naturally.