Susan's Place Transgender Resources

I know, I know.....those who have trod the steps before me will say "what did you expect a perfect female voice?  You just started!"
And I know it's going to take time.  But like everyone else, I want it NOW.  I'm tired of "sir" on the phone.  I'm still working with the "Exceptional Voice" first CD, and am good with the vocal things.  Last week, I put a new message on my cell phone, and later, got a cheery message from Marcy "hello Beverly, your new message sounds very feminine..."    That's my sweetie   :) 
So, I've kept at it, until today, when I finally, found Beverly's voice!  What a neato thing!  I promptly recorded a new message on my phone while driving, with Beverly's voice.  Poor Beverly has been running around with a 'feminized' version of Michael's voice, which is just not good enough.
So now I have this voice....this wonderful voice, but I can't keep it, and drift off after about 10 minutes or so, and have a hard time picking it up again.  When I got home, I asked Marcy if she wanted to hear my new message.  "Sure..".  She was happy to listen.  I handed her the phone, and watched her expression go from regular expectation to an odd, almost shocked expression.  "Play it again!" she said.
"Well", I asked, "what do you think?  You look kind of....creeped out..."
"No", she said...."not creeped out, but it's sooo strange, your voice.....it's a woman speaking!"
She found it oddly fascinating, I think.  So, I was a little concerned, did she like it, dislike it?  She said it was different, and she would get used to it, another new thing.
Later tonight, I found my voice again, and she was just fine with it.  Now I want the voice all the time, but it drifts away after a while, and it takes time to find it again.
Anyone else had a voice that came and went?/color]

I've heard that it takes time to retrain your voice, so keep at it and eventually it won't disappear. 

Personally I don't plan to change my voice, as it's neither too masculine, nor overly feminine.  If I tried to change my voice I think it would sound fake to me.

~Fae

Quote from: regina on August 06, 2007, 11:49:40 PM

Quote from: Fae on August 06, 2007, 11:36:50 PM
I've heard that it takes time to retrain your voice, so keep at it and eventually it won't disappear. 

Personally I don't plan to change my voice, as it's neither too masculine, nor overly feminine.  If I tried to change my voice I think it would sound fake to me.

~Fae

If you retrain your voice properly, it's no more fake than the voice you started with... it's all different parts of the same voice... there is no trick. The voice you've been socialized with is just as manipulated, altered and 'fake' as the voice you would have if you worked on it to make it sound more female. And yes, it does take a long time to do (I've been seeing a speech pathologist for over a year, and that was starting with my andro voice, not my 'original' voice). Eventually, the voice you started with will sound completely bizarre to you (as it did to me when I saw a video of 'me' from 7 years ago). Eventually, the voice you've worked on will be the only voice you hear, but you have to work on it until any other voice is out of your head and your voicebox muscles and way of speaking know no other way to it. When you get there, it won't sound fake in the least, and it will sound like the voice coming from inside you, the voice that expresses who you really are.

ciao,
Gina M.

It that really possible? To have gone through mtf puberty and get your voice into a female pitch? Now, I'm not saying I don't believe you or anything, I haven't heard your voice. But it seems all the transwomen voices I've heard fall into one of two categories.
male range voice with female speech and female communication
or obvious falsetto

I prefer the male range with female speech personally. It's natural and unique. Sounds lovely.
So, is there really a way to change the pitch without falling into falsetto?

Quote from: Nero on August 07, 2007, 12:31:06 AM

I prefer the male range with female speech personally. It's natural and unique. Sounds lovely.
So, is there really a way to change the pitch without falling into falsetto?

That's the voice Beverly speaking with Michael's voice is, but the voice Beverly learned is not unnatural or falsetto.  It's a mid-lower range woman's voice.  I love it, and plan on working hard to get and keep it.

Bev

Quote from: regina on August 07, 2007, 10:11:36 AM
It's taken me a year of constant work to get to where I am. I haven't gotten anything other than ma'am on the phone for the past 9 months and that's without first telling them my name.

That's hopeful... although I'll admit I'm getting desperate and beginning to think it's as good as it's gonna get for me. Which isn't great...

My wife introduced me to a new neighbor last night, and we said a number of things that made it obvious we were married... at which point he became terribly confused, lol. He later told me that, "What I couldn't figure out was why this woman (me) was standing there talking to me in an obviously male voice... it made no sense."

My coworker today slipped and called me by my male name... and instantly apologized and corrected herself, explaining, "You know, it's the voice that throws me off..."

Sigh.

Hang in there Beverly. I CAN do a reasonable voice at times, but as you say... it comes and goes. Talking to a neighbor outside in 90 degree heat at 1:00am while holding in my hand my name change forms I'd just received... I'd lost it, lol. And at work I get lazy with it. First thing in the morning, it's pretty good. But it gets more and more raspy as the day goes by, and I eventually lose it.

I know what Nero is saying, and I've heard the falsetto's too. I'd probably rather sound male than fake, and yet it IS awkward to sound like an obvious male while calling yourself Kate, lol... maybe falsetto is better...

~Kate~

someone needs to modify one of those Darth Vader voice changers so it sounds like a  woman, and not need to wear the Darth Vader helmet. Unless you want to!

Luke... I am your mother!

Quote from: Nero on August 07, 2007, 12:31:06 AM


It that really possible? To have gone through mtf puberty and get your voice into a female pitch? Now, I'm not saying I don't believe you or anything, I haven't heard your voice. But it seems all the transwomen voices I've heard fall into one of two categories.
male range voice with female speech and female communication
or obvious falsetto

I prefer the male range with female speech personally. It's natural and unique. Sounds lovely.
So, is there really a way to change the pitch without falling into falsetto?

alright nero, talk to maud on here, and ask her, my voice is entirely natural female now, you would never havea clue that i was trans from my voice, infact, when people talk to me, it dispells any confusion to my gender, before hrt, wow, it was bad and MALE... ive done no voice training, or practice, its just slowly slipped into female speach patterns, range, inflections, and rhythmn, im as suprised as anyone, but it did change since hrt, phsycological, or medical...

Quote from: Nero on August 07, 2007, 12:31:06 AM
Now, I'm not saying I don't believe you or anything, I haven't heard your voice. But it seems all the transwomen voices I've heard fall into one of two categories.
male range voice with female speech and female communication
or obvious falsetto

Oh, is that so? :eusa_eh: Well, you've spoken to me on the phone a number of times, which category do I fall into?  On the phone before, you commented how female it sounded and how unusual that was.  But if ALL the transwomen voices you have heard fall into one of those 2 categories, which one would I be in?

/me takes nero's spade away from him.

R :police:

Racheal, HRT has nothing to do with it, but if you had a good range in your male voice, you could easily just push the pitch up, but that's not enough to make a perfectly female voice (though it may be good enough if your other gender clues are fine).

If you've got a smallish jaw and are of small stature, you will have the correct resonance, otherwise, you will have to practice it; its not something people notice themselves, but others hear it. You have to record it.

That's why most TS voice sound nasal (which is OK if its not too accentuated), they slipped into a head voice without changing resonnance.

I've rarely heard a TS voice that doesn't have transient nasal overtones (episodic nasality), including mine (even though its now rare); its something you have to look for. 

do i LOOK like i have a small jaw? lol
nope, not short neither. and im just saying what i have, its a very natural female voice, that if anything, confirms the visuals, rather than the other way around, ask anyone here who has spoken to me, its not readable.... its just female, not nasal, not falcetto, its female. its since i started hrt, and i have no other way to explain it, pls dont tell me how i sound.

R :police:

Quote from: regina on August 07, 2007, 10:11:36 AM

Quote from: Nero on August 07, 2007, 12:31:06 AM

It that really possible? To have gone through mtf puberty and get your voice into a female pitch? Now, I'm not saying I don't believe you or anything, I haven't heard your voice. But it seems all the transwomen voices I've heard fall into one of two categories.
male range voice with female speech and female communication
or obvious falsetto

I prefer the male range with female speech personally. It's natural and unique. Sounds lovely.
So, is there really a way to change the pitch without falling into falsetto?

In response to your question, I don't think your voice should ever be in falsetto. That's a no-no.

Nope, you know what happens when you ASSUME, Nero. It's entirely possible. I started off as a (ugh) high baritone voice and I was able to do it. I'm not saying it's possible for everyone, but with proper training and enough work it can be done. And I've heard voices that were absolutely female sounding voices, not the two categories you mentioned (which also exist). The types of voices you mention are from people who haven't really gone to a speech pathologist who knows what they're doing, who aren't putting enough effort into it and who give up too soon. It's taken me a year of constant work to get to where I am. I haven't gotten anything other than ma'am on the phone for the past 9 months and that's without first telling them my name. I'm not saying I'm totally there yet (nor that being called ma'am means your voice is 'there' yet), I still have things I'm working on, but my last post absolutely describes the reality of changing one's voice.

ciao,
Gina M.

Ok. I guess I assume too much based on what I've heard. :laugh: Which I really shouldn't do because that's what cisgender folk do. They think they know one TS, they know them all.

There are actors who do a myriad of voices very well, so I guess it is possible to retrain one's voice.
I doubt it's achievable for everybody though. Just as some people are blessed with the gift of song and some aren't.
Still really like the male range voice with the female speech and communication style. It's really sexy.
Some pre-T ftms also do a fake voice that's pretty obvious, pushing their voice down low, so that it shows in their face what they're doing.

Thing is though - is the female voice something you constantly have to think about and keep during a conversation, or is it second nature?

mine has been natural and nearly impossibly to change back since about april. i CAN go deepish, but not as deep as i could. and its hard to maintain the deeper voice, most of my deep atempts sound like a female doing a deep voice however >< like the f2ms nero mentioned ><

R :police:

Well, people who have seen/heard my blog know what I sound like. I'm more critical of my voice/looks than 99.9% of the people out there (I get days where I think people are deaf and blind, because I still get ma'med on days that I look or sound like a disaster, even on the phone.)

But, anyway, my point is that we are more critical of ourselves and flaws than anyone else is and we're going to notice things that other people won't notice and beat our selves up for it. So, we have to sit back a bit and realize that and let ourselves grow instead of beating ourselves in the head for not being perfect.

It's good to progress, and we should let yourselves progress... but if we beat our selves up, we won't progress as fast. The worst kind of encouragement is negative reinforcement.

Your right, unless I hear you, I cannot judge how you sound; and unless you run your voice through a spectrograf how can you know that you subjective assessment is absolutely right.

I was just dispelling the notion that HRT had anything to do with it.
That is IMPOSSIBLE. Its also physically impossible to have a female resonnance with a large vocal resonnance cavity (its physics (the harmonics are rebounding waves from the main pitch), check it out, not an opinion), so if you do have a female resonnance, you've got to have this now (and had it before), if not, you've got everything (pitch, pattern, etc) but that unless you worked on it (with tongue, mouth and larynx placement, its not something that comes instinctively).

I just wish people would actually read what others say before reacting.

IF you want to hear my voice, go into poetry forum, and listen to the poem I read on video.

Quote from: Rachael on August 07, 2007, 03:17:36 PM
mine has been natural and nearly impossibly to change back since about april. i CAN go deepish, but not as deep as i could. and its hard to maintain the deeper voice, most of my deep atempts sound like a female doing a deep voice however >< like the f2ms nero mentioned ><

R :police:

That's because you're used to using different vocal cords, and the other ones atrophy.

I can't do a male voice very well, and I never could. Believe me, when i was younger my family was sent to a speech pathologist and counceller to try to make me sound and be more male. It didn't work well. Later, after trying since I was six years old to make me a guy, I was sent on a church mission which included constant church-based councelling and drugging using there infamous "we can a cure gay, lesbian, bi, and trans people" program. I was on 32 pills a day and constantly put through the grinding program to make me male. At the end, my voice still didn't sound very male-ish, and at best, it sounded like a gay male voice (which didn't please them). The 32 pills I was given per day didn't help me believe in the church any better, help me be a man, or cure my "transexuality." The program, however, just gave me tons of wonderful psychological scars which left me in and out of hospitals for years, until I could actually heal enough to transition (physically and mentally).

So, yeah, basically, I think I should stop there before I hijack this thread with my own personal junk.

As for voice, even people I know have done voice training and a difficult time going a back to a male voice, because they never use it. The only people I know who can use both all the time are cross-dressers and drag queens, since they speak in both voices which keep all of the cords exercised.

well im not being personally subjective, im going off what im told too, i quote 'its ->-bleeped-<-dar jammingly female' its simply a female voice
and apparnetly hrt doesnt reduce facial hair, although ive had significant reduction, which oh, is mentioned as a possibility for younger transitioners just out of puberty  (within 5 years). plus most hrt research is done on older transitoners (the more common group) so the full effects for young transitioners arnt fully comprehended.

lets not jump the gun here...

R :police:

I don't think your reading what I'm saying.
Resonnance cannot change because its based on the BONES (size of neck and jaw) and CARTILAGE (pharinx position, this one changes quite early in puberty), things that go just ONE WAY. Even FTM will have an androgyne voice if they don't change their resonnance (again, other gender clues mean that may not be important to passing).

What your talking about is the vocal cords themselves, which may or may not change since changes in the soft tissue around them affects pitch (but probably not change it substantially or we would have heard that effect from other young TS before).

As for the beard disapeering, plenty of young TS with a fine or sparse beard get most of them to become vellus under HRT, its not an unknown effect at all. In most older TS, the beard's hair shaft is now too big to become small enough to become vellus, so you've got to get rid of it or endure a fine haired beard.

I wanted to post an email I sent that goes into a little more detail on the Exceptional Voice Cd:

Yes, the CD from Exceptional voice dot com has been very helpful.  It takes you by the hand, and if you practice, practice, practice, you will see very real differences.  I've been working with the first CD for only two weeks or less, while driving back and forth to work.  My drive is 30 minutes, so I listen and practice an hour a day.  I don't have the second CD yet, or the electronic tuner, but I will when funds allow.
One thing I did differently than instructed was, after 2 weeks, started using higher notes than their 3A, going up the scale until I reached falsetto.  I backed down one note from the falsetto, which keeps my voice a very natural sounding female voice, not fakey.  I have a small voice box, and my 'adam's apple' is only apparent if you feel it (as a matter of fact, my doctor wondered if I had a trahceal shave.)

It took a lot of nerve using this voice in public, and I can only do it for very short interchanges, like with cashiers, fast food places, etc.  I only had the nerve after recording this new voice, and playing it back to myself.  What you hear in your head is very different than what you hear outside your head.
Anyway, before I started, my expectations were kind of low, but I thought it was worth a shot.  For an old girl of 56, I'm clocked female now 100% of the time, but that damned voice gives me away.  What a shame, for any of us.
What a surprize I had, though, after 2 weeks!  But you have to stick with it.   Nothing happens overnight, and I think it's going to take me months and months and months for a new voice I can depend on.  But what the heck....I thought I'd never have breasts either.  And I thought I'd never look female.  Wrong on both counts, so I'm expecting a lot in my voice change.

I think this is such an important part of my transition, I want to share it with anyone who wants to read.

Best of luck!

Bev

Quote from: Keira on August 07, 2007, 04:21:09 PMAs for the beard disapeering, plenty of young TS with a fine or sparse beard get most of them to become vellus under HRT, its not an unknown effect at all. In most older TS, the beard's hair shaft is now too big to become small enough to become vellus, so you've got to get rid of it or endure a fine haired beard.

Hmmm, that's quite interesting.  For the most part, my beard did not just go away by itself (I'm still removing bits of it, although it was "patchy" to begin with), but there are some areas that have quite a bit of vellus hair that I don't recall being there before.  I wonder if perhaps HRT actually did have *some* effect on it. ???

Kiera:ill admit, my knowlage of the science of voice is weak, all i know is before hrt, i had a deffinately masculine voice that would never pass for female, not in a blue moon. i started AAs in nov, and estrogen in jan, and since then my voice change, with no consious effort of my own, or practice, it just  ajusted, to a point now where im ONLY taken for female over the phone....
i dont know how it happened, my doctor doesnt, and ill be buggered if i care!

R :police:

With my voice, here's what happened.  When I first went out as a female the first time, I talked in as much of a female voice as I could muster up based on what I had read on the internet.  I guess it was androgynous, although it would occasionally slip into a chest voice.  Eventually, I developed what I would call my "pleasant voice", which was a head voice and the pitch varied somewhat when I talked, but my pitch wasn't really raised much (you have to raise pitch to achieve a head voice).  I wanted to get my voice to sound unambiguously female so bad.  I had been trying to use "finding your female voice", but I didn't seem to be making progress.  One of my problems with that particular program was that I had such a large vocal range, it was difficult finding the correct pitch.  I went to a speech therapist about 3 months after I had started HRT and shortly before I would be going fulltime.  I had 4 sessions with her over a period of a month (the first one revolving around finding the right pitch).  I kept practicing (usually only while driving) and after a couple of weeks, my voice just started changing by itself.  I had been talking in a chest voice at work, but I used a head voice for my female voice.  Somehow, it started magically staying in the head voice even at my normal chest voice pitch.  It flipped back and forth for about a week, and then it pretty much has stayed in a head voice ever since.  I stopped fighting to keep my chest voice at work even though I wasn't out yet and fortunately nobody seemed to notice (or care).

I don't know if hormones or voice training (although with how soon after starting training that my voice changed makes me somehow doubt it was training) that my voice changed.  The effect of the change wasn't really with the pitch (which I went up over time due to practicing I believe), but rather that I lost the ability to easily speak in a chest voice even if I tried to.  I *can* still talk in a chest voice, but it requires a lot of concentration and relaxing almost everything.  It kind of screws up my voice for a while though and hurts, so I rarely do it.

I know my voice still isn't perfect yet (I've gotten sirred on the phone even when trying, which is probably due to me getting lazy for a while), but I continue to improve it and I do hope that over time, it will sound perfectly female regardless of whether I try or not.  As Regina said, you need to work at it and I kind of relaxed for a while and slipped a bit.  At the very least, it's androgynous because I do get ma'amed over the phone most of the time.  In person I think my face tends to make my voice be perceived as female though since I don't have any problems in that regard, even with a cold (which I've had for the past 2 and a half weeks).

One thing that I have improved a lot is my singing voice.  I had to so I could be in my musical.  It's certainly not excellent, but it *does* pass.  Plus I'm even doing a small solo part. ;D  I kind of sing in falsetto, but I also push air with my diaphragm (rather than my lungs) and keep an open throat (while still tightening my vocal cords) and it seems to work just fine.  In other words, I'm just using proper singing techniques, but manipulating my throat and vocal cord muscles into more of a falsetto fashion and it seems to work.  Using your diaphram give your voice a somewhat breathier quality with the falsetto position of the vocal cords balancing it out and the open throat is especially important when singing higher pitched notes.  That's about the best way I can describe the technique I use to sing in a passable female singing voice at least.  It's definitely a different technique than speaking as a female or singing as a male, but the result is great.  If the voice starts sounding a bit pinched (and falsetto), just increase the throughput of air volume.

I'm hoping to see a speech pathologist in down -- it's very hard to get into and the wait list is very long. Basically, I had to wait to see the doctor at the gender clinic to get the referal (on average, it takes a year to get an appointment there... I got very lucky and got in at 10 months). Then the voice clinic is something like 6 months of waiting.

I have my referral in, and I'll be going there in Sept (referral went in May).

Although, sadly, they told me pretty frankly that the probably can't do anything with me. The girl was actually confused at first and didn't know if she was talking to the right person (she was looking for a Transgendered person, and she thought I was a GG). She asked if I was taking lessons else where, which I said no (because I wasn't). She then asked what I wanted them to do. I said, "To make my voice more feminine, of course." And then, she was clueless and said, "what part."

Anyway, that went on for a long conversation that ended saying that they don't know what to help me with because I sounded female on the phone.

I keep thinking that I must sound horrible -- but I think it could be because I'm using the voice I already had for years and years as a guy, and now as a female it seems to "sound good to others" but I think I might still be associating it to my old-self.

Although, I don't know what "sounds good" means -- does it mean passable, not that bad but could be better, or it's so horrible you sound like a sick cat but I'll be nice and not hurt your feelings. *shrugs*

I always seem skeptical when people tell me that I sound or look good. I wonder if they aren't all just sparing my feelings while I go out and look like a fool. *shrugs* I don't know. But then I haven't been sir'd in person or on the phone in like forever and ever. So why do I still have a hard time believing it myself?

Quote from: gothique11 on August 07, 2007, 09:55:02 PM
Anyway, that went on for a long conversation that ended saying that they don't know what to help me with because I sounded female on the phone.

That is really one of the biggest tests.  If you consistently pass fine on the phone, then your voice should be perceived as female in just about all situations.

Quote from: gothique11 on August 07, 2007, 09:55:02 PM
I keep thinking that I must sound horrible -- but I think it could be because I'm using the voice I already had for years and years as a guy, and now as a female it seems to "sound good to others" but I think I might still be associating it to my old-self.

Did you used to get maamed on the phone before ever transitioning?  If so, you probably sounded female before.  If not, then I'm not sure what changed.

Before I transition, I know I NEVER got maamed on the phone because I started with a somewhat low voice.

My F0 is higher than the female average and consistently got mamed on the phone all my life (at least 80% of the time).

The funny thing is that people that know me from before wonder why I haven't changed my voice, since they say that the fact it hasn't changed much is what confuses them most (since everything else is much different).

Then, I tell them that my voice is and was female they don't believe me until they see me in a public setting and sure enough they have to concede that my voice blends in well with the other women there.

when people cant see an obvious change, its weird for them, but met an old school friend, and his most common phrase was 'oh my god'
im literally completely different in voice, apearance, and behaviour, it freaks people out :D

R :police:

Quote from: Nero on August 07, 2007, 12:31:06 AM

Quote from: regina on August 06, 2007, 11:49:40 PM

Quote from: Fae on August 06, 2007, 11:36:50 PM
I've heard that it takes time to retrain your voice, so keep at it and eventually it won't disappear. 

Personally I don't plan to change my voice, as it's neither too masculine, nor overly feminine.  If I tried to change my voice I think it would sound fake to me.

~Fae

If you retrain your voice properly, it's no more fake than the voice you started with... it's all different parts of the same voice... there is no trick. The voice you've been socialized with is just as manipulated, altered and 'fake' as the voice you would have if you worked on it to make it sound more female. And yes, it does take a long time to do (I've been seeing a speech pathologist for over a year, and that was starting with my andro voice, not my 'original' voice). Eventually, the voice you started with will sound completely bizarre to you (as it did to me when I saw a video of 'me' from 7 years ago). Eventually, the voice you've worked on will be the only voice you hear, but you have to work on it until any other voice is out of your head and your voicebox muscles and way of speaking know no other way to it. When you get there, it won't sound fake in the least, and it will sound like the voice coming from inside you, the voice that expresses who you really are.

ciao,
Gina M.

It that really possible? To have gone through mtf puberty and get your voice into a female pitch? Now, I'm not saying I don't believe you or anything, I haven't heard your voice. But it seems all the transwomen voices I've heard fall into one of two categories.
male range voice with female speech and female communication
or obvious falsetto

I prefer the male range with female speech personally. It's natural and unique. Sounds lovely.
So, is there really a way to change the pitch without falling into falsetto?

The female range and male ranges overlap, A2=average male and A3= Average female voice, that is one octave (Sing "somewhere over the rainbow" If Some=a2 then where =a3) My trained female voice ranges from c2 to around d3, and occasionally jumps up to e5 (falsetto which is Ok if used correctly) So, like many GGs, I am at the lower end of the range. Of course, resonance is more important than pitch.

I'm already doing much better with the voice training.  Wow!  I would never have believed it.  Now, I can easilly enough do F4 pitch speech (falsetto for me is higher than that).  I can use this voice anytime I want now, but can only converse with it for about 10 minutes, then bring it down a couple notes.  I'm getting much more confident now.  I used it today at work a few times with customers, and they seemed to think I was just another nice woman who was easy to talk to.  The rest of the day, I relaxed, around A3.
I'm convinced now, that this is actually going to work!  Yay!

Bev