Community Conversation => Transitioning => Topic started by: amber roskamp on August 28, 2014, 07:35:17 PM Return to Full Version

Title: voice training
Post by: amber roskamp on August 28, 2014, 07:35:17 PM
so i just started working on feminizing my voice. The girl who was working with me is a music major from my support group. she is not a voice coach just a friend helping me out. What she is training me to do was to use my falsetto. im not sure if i want to do it this way or another way. I am wondering how everyone else changed there voice.
Title: Re: voice training
Post by: Carrie Liz on August 28, 2014, 08:32:50 PM
Singing along to female folk singers, Disney songs, and trying to copy their tone and inflection as closely as I possibly could. Plus some advice from Kathe Perez and Andrea James about lifting up the voice box and speaking from your head.

Plus being full-time and having to speak in a female voice always, that really made a huge improvement and fast.

Mostly it was just practice, practice, practice, singing along to the same songs every single evening on the way to work and on the way back from work, and it just slowly started getting higher and higher, and got easier to hold it up there.
Title: Re: voice training
Post by: androgynouspainter26 on August 28, 2014, 10:47:21 PM
Amber,

Never use the falsetto for speaking!  It has a distinctive pitch that never sounds like anything but a falsetto-we gender speech based on a number of factors, such as cadence, timbre, pitch, tone, and a number of other things-falsetto fixes the pitch, but the quality of the sound just feels unnatural!  Besides, if you speak in your full-time for a year I guarantee you are going to utterly shred your vocal cords within the first year.  It might help to look on youtube at some of the videos there.  Everyone trained their voice differently, and what I did or Carrie did might not seem right for you.  If you shop around, I'm sure you'll find something you love!
Title: Re: voice training
Post by: katiej on September 01, 2014, 05:21:58 PM
^^ This!

It helps to identify your falsetto and learn to use it, but talking in falsetto is going to trash your vocal chords pretty quickly.  It'll also get you clocked every time.  It's a caricature of how women talk  And because of our larger male vocal chords, even using falsetto is identifiably male because of the added resonance that women just don't have.

Carrie mentioned lifting up the voice box.  I've also heard it referred to as squeezing the vocal chords.  This is really the key to losing the resonance.  It took a while, but once I figured it out, it's easy to go back and forth.

I recommend watching CandiFLA's videos on YouTube  like this one. (http://youtu.be/qbaj4tIX1kw?list=UUIUQw0IUKOQYavxmUThdVFQ)  Start at her early videos where she talks about voice.  She developed a very natural sound, and I think she does a good job of explaining how she got there.
Title: Re: voice training
Post by: Auroramarianna on September 02, 2014, 07:41:32 AM
Falsetto is a totally unnatural way of speaking. It's because it sounds too fake and it's too airy. It's totally totally damaging to try to use falsetto to project your voice. What is really important is that you lift your voice box using your neck muscles, but you can't go over the top, just find a happy medium and that allows you to intonate properly. But I guess I can't help that much because I have always done this subconsciously and now I'm stuck with a voice which is 270-310 Hz, which is just child range, if I hadn't done this, I would have a voice around 190-220 Hz. Anyway, falsetto not only sounds unnatural, but it also is very monotone and lacks power and melody. Also, the fact that resonance is still maleish can get people read. Go for something that will allow your voice to have acceptable intensity and pitch. Falsetto voices looks innapropriate on adult women and speech theraphy is immediately recommended for women (or men) who speak like that, so this isn't just a gender thing.

The most important thing beforehand is to remove chest resonance. Women speak from their heads and necks, their voices resonante in upper cavities, while men's resonante on the diapraghma. Once you do this, your voice will sound better not matter the pitch. But pitch is still key to get your voice right. If you're young like 15-25, you could aim for 200-250 range, average speaking voice around 220. If you're older 40+, then under 200 mark would be good. You have to aim for at least 165+ Hz, this is the point where people start getting gendered female on the phone. Combined with right resonance, perfect! And voila!  Oh, I almost forgot, you could also download praat to analyze your voice's pitch and resonance and documment your progress. It will be useful. Also sometimes praat is tricky when it comes to analyzing pitch, so hear the recordings as well once to see if it sounds right.

Good luck with your training!

Title: Re: voice training
Post by: amber roskamp on September 02, 2014, 04:48:37 PM
yea these are very helpful thank you! the girl who was teaching me actually passed when speaking to a blind guy so that is impressive, she claims to have used her falsetto. i don't think i wanna use it because it sound so wonky when i try. and i really don't want to damage my vocal chords.