Female voice for MtF

[spacial]

A number of people who have changed from Male to female seem to be self consious about their voices. Especially the depth.

I was listening to Naoimi Campbel and it occured to be that this very sexy and femine woman has a deep voice.

But listening to it, it is very female. The secret is in how she tones different words.

I wonder if anyone else has noticed this?

http://www.youtube.com/watch#v=Y-PRTnkCgKo&feature=related

[Pippa]

A feminine voice is much more about intonation rather than pitch.   I can think of several women who have deep voices.  However, even though there voices are deep, they tend not to have masculine base to their voice.   I am working on my voice as it is a real giveaway.   Try to get the top of your voicebox to resonate and imagine that you are speaking from just behind your teeth.   It is hard work but others have shown that a femiine voice is possible.

[andie723]

Naomi is such a gorgeous woman, I'm incredibly jealous of her in general, but you're right, she is deeper --- but with a sultry, flowing speech pattern. 

I've also really tried to work on this.  Naturally, I'm fortunate to have a higher voice as a male, but straying away from the intonations I have always had are difficult and often I find myself going up in pitch to overcompensate, which --- I realize does not help anything.  I have come to realize that girls don't all have that kitty cat voice which is the default for anyone trying to sound female (even in jest, when a man tries to impersonate a girl) --- so it's a battle with the mind I guess.

[Janet_Girl]

Learning to accept your voice as yours is first and for most.  My neighbor has a deeper voice than I do, but it is the way she speaks and the infliction of the words.

Naomi is such a pretty woman, and her voice it just plain sexy.

[Sandy]

Inflection, intonation, word choice and sentence phrasing are just as important as timbre and resonance.

Much of that is not speaking *like* a female, but learning to *think* AS a female.

This is much of the socialization that happens when females are children.  Mommy: "Good girls don't speak like that!"

Women who have deep voices are still read as female (mostly) because of the *way* that they speak, not *how* they speak.

-Sandy

[Myself]

I disagree.
Resonance (and probably at least a minimum pitch) are the most important thing for your voice to be RECOGNIZED as female.

The rest is talking STYLES, while it is more feminine to do that, not ALL do it. But probably most.

My best tip for you is to ditch half of your vocal cord by keeping tension on them (most likely the lower half), do not go to falsetto. It should be a slight tension and a difference mechanism than falsetto anyways (in falsetto you push them further apart).

Try to speak, record yourself, see the average pitch it formed.
See if it sounds female to you, if not you should try to add resonance to it, this can be done by adding a bit of tension a bit of tension at the base of the tongue.(really, it's base, don't play with the tongue itself).
This will most likely block a bit of the pharynx, allowing less air through at the time (out) and therefore decreasing the resonance chamber.
After you master that, everything else will be easier, I don't know why, but I predict mastering the "inflection" and the rest should come naturally later.
Post Merge: February 27, 2010, 11:37:12 PM

Inflection, intonation, word choice and sentence phrasing are just as important as timbre and resonance.

Much of that is not speaking *like* a female, but learning to *think* AS a female.

This is much of the socialization that happens when females are children.  Mommy: "Good girls don't speak like that!"

Women who have deep voices are still read as female (mostly) because of the *way* that they speak, not *how* they speak.

-Sandy

I tend to disagree and say it is mostly because of their resonance.
I met women with really deep voice and you hear them, you can't mistake them for a male because of the resonance.
I met guys with high voices and even gay people who speak "feminine" and at the support group a lot of people who tried to talk like female, they didn't sound like female, even if they had perfect inflection.
I heard women with no inflection at all. Some with normal pitch, some with deeper pitch. It sounds female because of its resonance, it sounds feminine because of the style (inflection).
There is a difference and I think people like to think that inflection is the key because resonance is a biological mechanism harder to change.

[LynnER]

Gods... how many times do I have to say this....

HARMONIC RESONANCE It doesnt matter what pitch your voice is if it resonates properly at the right harmonics it will be read as female.... this also works in reverse for FTM's pre T

Its very hard to describe in type but here goes <for the umpteenth time>

Feel your voice box, it has a top and bottom... both vibrate equally. NOW speak in a falseto, there is little to no vibration.... next try to speak while leaving the vibration at the bottom of the voicebox normal and with little to no vibration at the top....  It takes practice, allot of practice. but it works very well, and its simple. You dont have to change your pitch, this just alters the harmonic resonance of your voice....

if your FTM you want to do the opisite, try to add that vibration to the voicebox that wasnt there before. Again dont worry about pitch.

[Sandy]

Exactly.  But anything you do, PLEASE don't do the Marilyn Monroe breathy thang, for it just sounds moronic.

But I *want* to sing Happy Birthday to the President!

-Sandy

[helenr13]

Practice, practice, practice pays dividends. Try this link http://www.youtube.com/user/tgvoice
It's been a great help to me.

[Myself]

Special, I don't mind helping you over skype call if you have a microphone

[Smith]

Hi My self, you are really nice woman, how about you make some training recording and put on youtube, it would be great for us, I think.

[Myself]

Hi My self, you are really nice woman, how about you make some training recording and put on youtube, it would be great for us, I think.

I don't know about youtube, there are already voice training videos there anyways, I remember seeing.

[Meshi]

I bought one of those small digital voice recorders when i first started and even took it in the car with me while driving.  Recording my  voice and playing it back, saying sentences  and talking about anything, until it sounded just like a female.  It is prob imo the best ways to really get a good feel for how your voice sounds, and you can change it until it sounds right. 

[Rock_chick]

Resonance (and probably at least a minimum pitch) are the most important thing for your voice to be RECOGNIZED as female.

I agree, even though I've not even really started working on my voice. I already have quite a feminine mode of speech; I use pitch to accent words, the way I phrase things is def more female than male, and have a fairly high pitch, not too bassy...but my voice is def gets read as male. I think i have a good starting point but it's still not going to be easy.

[Asfsd4214]

Gods... how many times do I have to say this....

HARMONIC RESONANCE It doesnt matter what pitch your voice is if it resonates properly at the right harmonics it will be read as female.... this also works in reverse for FTM's pre T

I completely agree. Pitch does matter... but it matters almost the least of anything.

A perfect experiment, is to take a male and female voice, and to use a computer to raise and lower the pitch of either. They both still sound male and female respectively. Because the modulation of the voice is unchanged.

Inflection, intonation, word choice and sentence phrasing are just as important as timbre and resonance.

Much of that is not speaking *like* a female, but learning to *think* AS a female.

This is much of the socialization that happens when females are children.  Mommy: "Good girls don't speak like that!"

Women who have deep voices are still read as female (mostly) because of the *way* that they speak, not *how* they speak.

-Sandy

I'm sorry, but I simply have to outright and completely disagree with you.

Women who have deep voices are still read as female, even if they DO speak like men do, because the modulation (reasonance/timber/whatever) is still female.

Vice versa, a man with a high voice who talks like a female will still be read as a male if the reasonence is the same.

Do you really think if you took say, angelina jolie, and had her say something in the style of a man, and lowered the pitch a bit, it would be read as male? Cause I can pretty much guarantee you it wouldn't.

Inflection, intonation, word choice and sentence phrasing are barely important at all, to the point where I would say they're actually COMPLETELY unimportant. If your voice sounds female through reasonence, it won't matter the style in which you speak, and it will only very marginally matter which pitch range you use either.

In order of importance, I would rate inflection as completely unimportant (although while you won't be read as BEING male with a male mode of speaking, you WILL be read as being a masculine female, so let me put that out there).

Then I would put pitch next, at being maybe 10% important.

Then the other 90% being all resonance.

[Hikari]

I noticed that the woman who sings a few words in that annoying ludacris video "How Low" has pitch quite lower than my own, yet is still comes off as obviously female.

I know patterns, inflection, etc matter but, if your native language is English they don't matter too much. The fact of the matter is, between accents and regions the language has so much variance that the way someone talks doesn't give me much if any gender clues.

Now if you were to speak a more gender structured language that has fewer variations such as Japanese how you talk might be as important as how you sound. For example If I were to say "I understand japanese" as "Boku wa nihongo ga wakarimasu" then it would be rude of me to say as a female, people would assume male where it isn't rude, women would more properly say "Watashi wa nihongo ga wakarimasu" although men can also say watashi say this too (and anyone older than 25 seems to never use boku regardless of gender from what I've seen).

I assume patterns of speech might also be more along gender lines in other languages as well but, I assume that most people here speak English. Studies show that men are more likely to say "this is nice" rather than "it's nice isn't it?" but, I don't think that anyone would question someone on their diction like this, as both genders say both things.

[Myself]

I think people here are over reading into talking styles and simply forget what the voice is.

I said it in a support meeting here too, they worked on breathy, end sentences higher, not talk in the same pitch during a sentence, don't use certain words or certain ways to say a sentence..

In the end the either sounded weird men or gay but not females.
Voice =  Resonance and Pitch.
Talking Style = Inflection, Breathyness, ending sentences higher/lower, speaking in different pitch during the sentence and the rest..

Working on voice properties, forget talking style. Besides chances are that once you have the voice properties the talking style will come alone because it just naturally happens when your force your vocal folds into that mode.

[Meshi]

Lol! You guys are getting way too technical.  Get a pocket digital recorder and practice going over and over your voice until it sounds female. It is the easiest way to do it im telling u...And u can do it in the car, at home, wherever.  Of course listening to other women can help, but it really wont develop your own voice, because each person has a different tone and quality.  I sounded very "male" when i first started, but by playing back my voice over and over again and modifying it until it  was exactly the way i wanted, it was not too difficult. It took me about 3 good months and i was there an it gets better as time goes by if you continue to use this voice every day.  I can talk to any straight guy and they think i am a genetic female.  Ive had females that know i am TG say they have heard genetic that dont sound as fem. Ive heard myself and my  cousin who is genetic cant tell the difference.  It only cost me about $40. for an Olympus one.  Dont get the one with all the gadgets, you dont need it.

[Myself]

Or just record in the computer.

There are also programs that can give you a pitch graph for your voice like praat.

http://www.fon.hum.uva.nl/praat/download_win.html

[Tammy Hope]

Can anyone give me a real "lower shelf" understanding of "resonance" as it applies to this subject and how one practices altering it?

It's probably something I already know and just don't make the association with this discussion but I don't want to assume that.