Can a deep voice be trained?

[JamieLH]

I have a very deep voice. (I've been told I should work in radio.)

Can someone with a deep male voice ever have a chance of having a natural sounding feminine voice?
I've listened to some astounding MTF voices on Youtube that just sound amazing.
I know there at genetic females with deep voices, but I'm not confident that a deep male voice could ever sound even slightly female.

[Maddie Secutura]

How deep are we talking here?  Like Peter Cullen deep?

I don't think it matters how deep your male voice is because you use a different mechanism to speak in a female voice.  Even though your voice has dropped, the female part is still there.  You just have to learn to bypass that lower bit of the larynx.

[wendy]

Absolutely a deep male voice can be trained to sound feminine.

At one support group I was feeling sorry for myself and I told a young TS lady that she did not have a deep male voice and that is why her voice was good.  Later when we were alone she chastised me with a deep male voice saying, "You have to practice!  A lot!"  I said, "O.K.", in an amazed male voice.

[aubrey]

Yep I'm living proof

[Julie Marie]

(I've been told I should work in radio.)

Me too, by many people.  But that was a long time ago.

You have to dissect the female voice and everything about it to understand the differences.  Women are conditioned differently and their speech patterns reflect that conditioning.  Once you have identified the differences in both the voice itself and the speech patterns, you will be on your way to being one of those people who overcame the challenges of having a deep voice.

BTW, I can sing as deeply as Barry White and I do a great impression of Lurch.  Last night we were out with a friend who recently transitioned.  We were introduced to a GG who knew her pre-transition.  We later found out this girl had no idea I was TS.  I credit the voice to helping along that line.  So the answer to your question is "YES!"

[atheris]

As others have said, "yes" It does take practice, but there are other elements of female speech besides pitch, resonance, phrasing, vocabulary, for example, that combine to create a natural speaking voice that's reliably perceived as female. One way to start, is simply by opening your mouth more and letting the words come out naturally. You can try changing your resonance by standing in front of a wall mirror and speaking to the mirror. Men speak with the words coming from the chest, as if they're speaking to the back of a large room. By speaking to a mirror, you're beginning to train your voice to speak to a closer target, and try to bring the words from the back of your throat as you speak close up. With your words coming from the back of your throat and having your mouth open wider, you can begin to raise the pitch as your speech flows from your throat. Buy the Boss TU-80 guitar tuner from Amazon.com so you can have visual feedback as you practice. This is the tuner recommended by one of the online speech programs, Exceptional Voice.com. It's difficult to practice blind...the visual feedback is an essential, and low cost guide.

I haven't been perceived as male over the phone in years. My target pitch is A3. I'll drop down to G3, and in daily speech, my voice fluctuates all over the spectrum from G3 on up. Room must be available for inflections, so it isn't practical to set a high pitch as a starting point. Regardless of your starting point, try to set a target that's comfortable for you, and work from there. G3 or A3 works well for most who are training their voice, and those serve as good target pitches that are in the female range of speech. Even if your pitch is low, as long as you can vary your pitch through the proper use of inflections, and your resonance is good, you can accomplish quite a bit.

[umop ap!sdn]

Yes. My voice goes all the way down to C2 (bottom of the bass range) and even still when I speak I sound like my mother but with a slightly different accent. I never allowed my normal speaking voice to descend into the male range, and so I've always passed 100% over the phone.

[Debra]

It shouldn't matter how deep you are...it's possible to feminize it =)

If you can't figure it out yourself, there's always professional help.

Try Sandy Hirsch: http://www.givevoice.com

[Nigella]

In a word, "YES" lol. Its using the position of the mouth, tongue and vocal cords instead of using your voice from your diaphragm.
If your musical try practising notes, lalalalalalala and get higher and higher until it breaks. Use this cut off to understand how to start coming down the scale to a point where its sustainable in the female range. Once reached use this to practice speach patterns as suggested in the other posts.

Stardust 

[Jamiess]

Thanks for this post it give me hope.

[Virginia]

Absolutely. Here's a short recording I did off the cuff, flip-flopping between my girl and guy voices:
VAsVoices.wmv

[danielleclark1987]

I, too, have a very deep voice. It's embarrassing to be dressed stunningly as a woman. Perfect hair, perfect clothes, perfect nails, and perfect makeup. Then I open my mouth and everyone looks over at me to see what made their wine vibrate and their ears ring!  Okay, maybe I'm being just a little over-the-top on that one.

I'm currently training my voice, as well, and I think it's the hardest aspect of my transition (as of right now). I canNOT seem to get rid of my low, monotone voice. I tend to speak very slow, soft, and as little as possible.

This gives me great encouragement! Thank you!

Danielle

[angiejuly]

I have been practicing and I`m doing quit well. I`m not full time at all but when I talk story and mock my wife or something I just use my female voice and everyone really trips out and even asks if that was me looking at me do it. So I say yes in a female voice to them. lol! You can do it! it`s about silencing the part of your throat you speak male out of , ( the top) and learning to speak with vibrations in your chest. I havent worked on pitch yet and am not sure if I care to. Pitch has nothing to do with it. I use my total male voice but with a womans choice of words and anunciation. It registers as felame to people and I get mammed sometimes anyway. And I look more like Axil Rose than anything else.

[CrazyTina]

How deep are we talking here?  Like Peter Cullen deep?

I had a James Ural Joans or Barry White deep voice... in the end, that doesn't even matter. My voice passes completely now ( http://youtube.com/user/ChristinaDream/ )

The trick I found is not trying to strain your voice up high, nor to try to talk in falseto. That will, if anything, damage your voice and sound terrible. What you need to do is experiment by trying to make your voice really nasal and sound like Jessica Simpson or one of those other girls. Then all of a sudden you will be able to feel your voice sort of "click-in" to the femme pitch range... then it is 4-5 months of using that voice 24/7 trying to make your S's and T's and other hard consonants stick out while striving to lower the volume and shorten the chords (without straining) to make your voice go higher.  It takes focus every time you talk. Hence why in my videos sometimes it is deeper than others. I can make it sound really good, which I do most of the time when I am outside, but when it is just me and my roommate I let it sink, but it still sounds feminine. Never let it fall back into chest range (bass).

Good luck, if you have any questions, feel free to hit me up. I can skype you or w/e to help you with the sound of your voice.

Most important, I want to help every trans person, and more than that every person in this dimension, and by helping you I am doing just that.

Thanks for reading this post I know it is tl;dr

[justmeinoz]

Singers do it.

[CrazyTina]

Singers do it.

Haha, yeah. That may have been why it was so easy for me to change my voice. But yes, in fact I have read several things saying that singing is a great way to work on feminizing your voice. Sing to Lady Gaga, she has a nice alto voice that anyone can follow.

[niciwer]

I had a James Ural Joans or Barry White deep voice... in the end, that doesn't even matter. My voice passes completely now ( http://youtube.com/user/ChristinaDream/ )

The trick I found is not trying to strain your voice up high, nor to try to talk in falseto. That will, if anything, damage your voice and sound terrible. What you need to do is experiment by trying to make your voice really nasal and sound like Jessica Simpson or one of those other girls. Then all of a sudden you will be able to feel your voice sort of "click-in" to the femme pitch range... then it is 4-5 months of using that voice 24/7 trying to make your S's and T's and other hard consonants stick out while striving to lower the volume and shorten the chords (without straining) to make your voice go higher.  It takes focus every time you talk. Hence why in my videos sometimes it is deeper than others. I can make it sound really good, which I do most of the time when I am outside, but when it is just me and my roommate I let it sink, but it still sounds feminine. Never let it fall back into chest range (bass).

Good luck, if you have any questions, feel free to hit me up. I can skype you or w/e to help you with the sound of your voice.

Most important, I want to help every trans person, and more than that every person in this dimension, and by helping you I am doing just that.

Thanks for reading this post I know it is tl;dr

Wow, that's a big change.  My voice is about as deep as your starting voice.  There's hope for me yet!