I'm training my voice by singing. I used to sing a lot in my youth.
Before my "age of reason" as George Carlin had elegantly put it,
I was even attending a church choir (no, I wasn't raped as far as I can remember).
I also used to play piano, acoustic, and electric guitar both bass one and the other one.
So using an open-source program called WASP as an analysis tool I sang my octaves, starting my pitch
well above 160Hz at the first DO. I could go as high as 320Hz a full octave later. Yet,
I'm still sounding masculine (or at the very least androgynous)! Where am I going wrong?
Is there a factor I'm missing here? Pitch >= 160Hz should be feminine!
Erm... I tried simulating a female orgasm and at 160Hz to 210Hz it sounded quite feminine though.
That's the only time I could pull off something feminine. It felt good actually (the feat, not the orgasm,
there was no orgasm!).
P.S.: I just started practicing. The notes I sang were consistent in pitch, showing as an almost flat-line
on WASP's pitch analyzer.
Why not post a sample in the "Voice Therapy" thread then people can give you tips about improving your voice? The normal method that most use is to upload a sample to SoundCloud.com and then use a link to it.
I just put a sample up a few minutes ago so anyone who wants to can critique it.
Agreed. Give us a clip and let us judge for ourselves. Most likely you're being over critical. I feel like with many transwomen, the voice doesn't have to pass completely if they look the part and their speech patterns are feminine.
Yeah, I'll do that tomorrow and post it in this thread.
Those files are on my laptop and I'm too lazy to go and
fetch them now, besides it's 20 past midnight here - time to go
have a sleepy time. :)
Thanks for the tip.
P.S.: I'm actually a bit under the weather now,
having a cold or something. It's not easy to practice my voice like that. >_<
Quote from: Alyx Vox on November 19, 2012, 04:03:35 PM
I'm training my voice by singing. I used to sing a lot in my youth.
Before my "age of reason" as George Carlin had elegantly put it,
I was even attending a church choir (no, I wasn't raped as far as I can remember).
I also used to play piano, acoustic, and electric guitar both bass one and the other one.
So using an open-source program called WASP as an analysis tool I sang my octaves, starting my pitch
well above 160Hz at the first DO. I could go as high as 320Hz a full octave later. Yet,
I'm still sounding masculine (or at the very least androgynous)! Where am I going wrong?
Is there a factor I'm missing here? Pitch >= 160Hz should be feminine!
Erm... I tried simulating a female orgasm and at 160Hz to 210Hz it sounded quite feminine though.
That's the only time I could pull off something feminine. It felt good actually (the feat, not the orgasm,
there was no orgasm!).
P.S.: I just started practicing. The notes I sang were consistent in pitch, showing as an almost flat-line
on WASP's pitch analyzer.
Pitch is probably one of the least important parts of sounding female, anything over a very low pitch can be made to sound feminine. Resonance is much more important. After that is annunciation, inflection and possible -how- you say things.
So, how do you control resonance?
Quote from: Alyx Vox on November 20, 2012, 02:09:05 AM
So, how do you control resonance?
Put your hand on the bony part of your chest below your throat and talk. You will feel vibration there under your hand. Females have little or no vibration there and
that is the main reason that their voice sounds so different from a male voice.
You can reduce chest resonance by changing the shape of the airways in your throat. One simple start is to lift your Adams Apple (AA) up. Put your fingers on your AA. Swallow and your AA will move up. Now do it again but put attention to what your tongue does during the swallow. It tends to move forward and down. So make the same movement with your tongue and your AA should move.
With your AA moved and your tongue down you have constricted the airway to your chest slightly and increased the resonant space in your mouth and the back of your throat. Now try talking. Your voice will sound very different. Put your hand on your chest and do it and there should be less vibration in your chest. Eventually you will have no vibration in your chest.
Raising your pitch also helps reduce resonance, but not as much as lifting your AA. Once you combine the two you will get good results.
Next you can change your pronunciation.Women pronounce their words slightly differently using tone and pitch for emphasis rather then volume.
It will take WEEKS to start to sound reasonably good. More likely it will take MONTHS so do not expect quick results, but if you keep practising and practising and practising then you will get there.
My soundcloud profile (http://soundcloud.com/alyx-vox)
Let me know what you guys think. It's like my second practice session,
so don't be too hard on me, please. :)
Erm... that orgasm thing was actually in the 200Hz to 250Hz range.
Quote from: Alyx Vox on November 20, 2012, 04:50:53 AM
My soundcloud profile (http://soundcloud.com/alyx-vox)
Let me know what you guys think. It's like my second practice session,
so don't be too hard on me, please. :)
Erm... that orgasm thing was actually in the 200Hz to 250Hz range.
TY for the warning you are attempting to do a female orgasm....
Quote from: Stephe on November 20, 2012, 09:17:48 AM
TY for the warning you are attempting to do a female orgasm....
Well, learning should be fun, shouldn't it? :)
Quote from: Alyx Vox on November 20, 2012, 04:50:53 AM
My soundcloud profile (http://soundcloud.com/alyx-vox)
Let me know what you guys think. It's like my second practice session,
so don't be too hard on me, please. :)
Erm... that orgasm thing was actually in the 200Hz to 250Hz range.
As part of the MTF thing your orgasms are meant to last longer than two seconds. That sort of timescale is for men only......
As for you other sample, it is full of male resonance. Try starting with simple phrases like "The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog" and aim to get it over 167Hz in pitch (over 200Hz if you can manage it) and try to lift your Adams Apple and change your tongue position. Listen to this sample to hear the difference
http://soundcloud.com/brc2012/the-quick-brown-fox-jumps-over/s-xtpCm (http://soundcloud.com/brc2012/the-quick-brown-fox-jumps-over/s-xtpCm)
The second phrase is lower in pitch, but it sounds 'rougher' because it has more overtones from the chest whereas the first phrase has nearly nothing from the chest. Removing the chest resonance and increasing the pitch by about 50Hz makes the difference you hear.
Quote from: bev2 on November 20, 2012, 10:20:04 AM
As part of the MTF thing your orgasms are meant to last longer than two seconds. That sort of timescale is for men only......
As for you other sample, it is full of male resonance. Try starting with simple phrases like "The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog" and aim to get it over 167Hz in pitch (over 200Hz if you can manage it) and try to lift your Adams Apple and change your tongue position. Listen to this sample to hear the difference
http://soundcloud.com/brc2012/the-quick-brown-fox-jumps-over/s-xtpCm (http://soundcloud.com/brc2012/the-quick-brown-fox-jumps-over/s-xtpCm)
The second phrase is lower in pitch, but it sounds 'rougher' because it has more overtones from the chest whereas the first phrase has nearly nothing from the chest. Removing the chest resonance and increasing the pitch by about 50Hz makes the difference you hear.
How long did it take you to sound like that?
My saving grace is that I had been training my
voice unconsciously for years now. I have a very broad
range from very low to very high pitch.
I tried practicing my resonance today. I think I'm progressing well.
What's the most efficient way to measure if your resonance is low?
I just place my hand right at the bottom of my chest-cage, any alternatives to that?
My Adam's Apple is very hard... It barely moves! When moved it also starts to hurt a lot!
I need a better mic...
P.S.: thanx for the tip on how to orgasm properly, I'll work on that too. :)
Quote from: Alyx Vox on November 20, 2012, 10:28:42 AM
How long did it take you to sound like that?
Six months and I am still improving it. It is now good enough for public use and in social situations it gets me read as female. It has 'rescued' me in one ladies' toilet when a rather tense looking lady asked me if I was in the correct toilet and I replied that this was the only ladies' loo I was aware of - when she heard my voice she visibly relaxed.
There are people on this forum who go on about 'passing' and facial surgery but, in my experience, nothing genders you as fast as your voice.
Quote from: Alyx Vox on November 20, 2012, 10:28:42 AMMy saving grace is that I had been training my voice unconsciously for years now. I have a very broad range from very low to very high pitch.
Do not aim too high. Try to get into the range 180 - 220Hz, but anything over 170Hz will do to start with.
Quote from: Alyx Vox on November 20, 2012, 10:28:42 AMI tried practicing my resonance today. I think I'm progressing well.
What's the most efficient way to measure if your resonance is low?
I just place my hand right at the bottom of my chest-cage, any alternatives to that?
Your hand should be at the bottom of your neck on the top of your sternum. The best way to practice is to record yourself and play it back and listen, then record the same phrase again and listen again and keep making small changes that way.
Quote from: Alyx Vox on November 20, 2012, 10:28:42 AMMy Adam's Apple is very hard... It barely moves! When moved it also starts to hurt a lot!
This is one reason it takes time. If you overdo this at the start you will strain your voice and damage your vocal chords. Keep your initial sessions short (say 10 to 15 minutes). It also takes time for your throat muscles to get strong enough to keep the Adams Apple up for any length of time.
Quote from: Alyx Vox on November 20, 2012, 10:28:42 AMP.S.: thanx for the tip on how to orgasm properly, I'll work on that too. :)
You're welcome..... :D
Quote from: bev2 on November 20, 2012, 10:20:04 AM
try to lift your Adams Apple and change your tongue position.
I've been working on my adam's apple, but I don't know anything about tongue position. How should that change?
Quote from: agfrommd on November 20, 2012, 10:57:25 AM
I've been working on my adam's apple, but I don't know anything about tongue position. How should that change?
See here https://www.susans.org/forums/index.php/topic,130169.msg1031370.html#msg1031370 (https://www.susans.org/forums/index.php/topic,130169.msg1031370.html#msg1031370)
I've just recorded a few more.
My interpretation of a song:
Hammock - Raising Your Voice...Trying To Stop An Echo (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wyqzjeSlHwA#)
I also added another high-pitch scale and a low pitch
version of my voice. I'm not saying it's my voice, my voice was
undefined for a long time. I was just randomly and unconsciously
picking between low- and high-pitch with everything in between.
So, be sure to check my soundcloud profile (http://soundcloud.com/alyx-vox)
and let me know what you think.
You guys are awesome! Thanks!
I think a good thing you'd want to try would be not only trying to sing a song, but taking a song sung by a female singer, listening to it carefully and trying to imitate the sounds she makes, not the song itself; trying to copy aspects of her voice.
It's also very useful, I think, to try to imitate as well as possible voice actresses. Not actresses - voice actresses. Because actors are into their role and all, while voice actors focus on voice only. It's always clear and just as intended.
And you're going to want to focus on the sound, again, here. Not the sentences. When you hear your own language, you'll naturally tend to focus on the meaning much more than the voice, and miss things even if you try to focus on the voice. So a foreign language it is. And it's good for songs as well. If it's a foreign language, you won't even understand most of what you'll be singing. So you'll be focusing much more on how it sounds.
Where are there many voice actresses in a foreign language? Japanese anime! I used to do that, sometimes. I would watch an episode, and at some point I'd hear something that sounds good. I'd pause and try to imitate it, and rewind and listen again, and try again, until I got it somewhat right. Inoue Orihime's "Shinanaide, Kurosaki-kun!" from Bleach made me understand things. Just like that other Japanese song made me understand some other things. Once you understand something about a female aspect of voice and manage to reproduce it, integrating it in your everyday voice is much easier
Alyx, I think you are taking the wrong approach here.
Singing helps improve your vocal range and control but for practice and evaluation it is very difficult to judge. Try recording (say) group one from the "Harvard Sentences" http://www.cs.columbia.edu/~hgs/audio/harvard.html (http://www.cs.columbia.edu/~hgs/audio/harvard.html)
1. The birch canoe slid on the smooth planks.
2. Glue the sheet to the dark blue background.
3. It's easy to tell the depth of a well.
4. These days a chicken leg is a rare dish.
5. Rice is often served in round bowls.
6. The juice of lemons makes fine punch.
7. The box was thrown beside the parked truck.
8. The hogs were fed chopped corn and garbage.
9. Four hours of steady work faced us.
10. Large size in stockings is hard to sell.
You can keep the recordings and compare later ones with earlier ones to check for improvement, also if you do 3 or 4 of the sentences in a single SoundCloud recording then it will be a good sample for other to evaluate.
I'm just "warming up" my voice now and I think the best way to do that is to sing.
I'll be reading sentences for my next session (thank you, bev, for providing me with those).
I really needed to sing, my voice had gotten rusty as I haven't sung in a long time.
I must say my "warming up" worked. My control over both range and resonance had improved
dramatically since day one. So I'm ready for focusing on speech instead of singing.
Added Harvard's Sentences List 1 and 2 to my soundcloud profile (http://soundcloud.com/alyx-vox).
Tell me where I need to improve, guys. I think my resonance is at bay and the pitch is constantly above 180Hz
and below 200Hz. I need to work on my intonations and the general force of my voice, I speak with very little
force now.
Yeah, you can definitely tell that English is not my native language. My accent is not too apparent in my male voice,
but it is now, since I only just started practicing. :D
Sorry, you aren't on the right track. It still sounds totally male to me. I would never think female hearing that voice. The resonance is way too strong. The only reason it sounds less is you are speaking softer. I made this mistake too when I tried to train my own voice without help of a therapist. The voice I have now I can yell for my dogs etc and still sounds female.
As others said, I don't think singing practice or simply working on pitch does much for feminizing a voice.
Quote from: Stephe on November 24, 2012, 12:40:46 PM
Sorry, you aren't on the right track. It still sounds totally male to me. I would never think female hearing that voice. The resonance is way too strong. The only reason it sounds less is you are speaking softer. I made this mistake too when I tried to train my own voice without help of a therapist. The voice I have now I can yell for my dogs etc and still sounds female.
As others said, I don't think singing practice or simply working on pitch does much for feminizing a voice.
Well, f*** me then...
What did you expect on my fourth day of practice?
Me being able to sing the entire Wagner's Valkyrie in all female voice?
If the resonance is still strong it means I have no way of measuring it, since
I didn't feel any (to very little) whilst speaking the words.
And no, I disagree that it sounds totally male, at the very least it sounds androgynous.
I never said it was sounding female. All I said I was improving.
That leaves two options: either you're wrong on the importance of resonance, meaning there is yet
another factor involved or my relatively large chest cage is at fault here - the resonance is just lost within.
P.S.: I have no time to go see a speech therapist, that's just the way it is. I'm a very busy person.
I'll have enough on my hands with my gender therapist already and my endocrinologist later.
However, I'm confident I can make it on my own. Most of the stuff I learned I did on my own anyways.
There are others like that (http://www.youtube.com/user/sucacinj1) out there.
Quote from: Alyx Vox on November 24, 2012, 04:01:45 PM
And no, I disagree that it sounds totally male, at the very least it sounds androgynous.
I never said it was sounding female. All I said I was improving.
Sorry, I won't comment anymore then to your posts.
You seem to believe in 4 days you can master this with no therapist. I honestly hear very little difference from your first recording and this one. You aren't even close to androgynous and clearly can't critique your own voice if you believe it is. BTW it took me 6 months of spending 2 hours a day practicing and weekly therapy sessions to get mine where I sound unquestionably female. I spend the first week just learning how to breath correctly. It takes a LOT of practice and some people just need guidance.
Busy or not this is WAY more important than even HRT as far as "passing".
Good luck!
Alyx, Stephe
Calm down the pair of you... it is not doing either of you any good to get wound up about this.
I have run Alyx's recording through my spectrum analyser and here is what it shows. First the pitch is good and is maybe even a little too high. The speech is centered about 220Hz which is ideal but sometimes it starts as high as 280Hz which is very difficult at this early stage. You might benefit from actually lowering your pitch slightly and aiming to be around 200Hz
Next, the pitch drops progressively during each phrase with the last word or syllable being down at 150Hz. This 'drop' is a very male attribute. Try not dropping in pitch near the end of the sentence.
I have listened to the sample a number of times and I cannot put my finger on what needs to be changed. The frequency analysis looks good overall and it does not sound like there is a lot of male resonance in it. I would guess it may be a matter of intonation (how the words are said) but for now keep practising but maybe at a slightly lower pitch.
Quote from: Stephe on November 24, 2012, 06:06:09 PM
Sorry, I won't comment anymore then to your posts.
You seem to believe in 4 days you can master this with no therapist. I honestly hear very little difference from your first recording and this one. You aren't even close to androgynous and clearly can't critique your own voice if you believe it is. BTW it took me 6 months of spending 2 hours a day practicing and weekly therapy sessions to get mine where I sound unquestionably female. I spend the first week just learning how to breath correctly. It takes a LOT of practice and some people just need guidance.
Busy or not this is WAY more important than even HRT as far as "passing".
Good luck!
I'm glad you won't comment anymore on my posts. I have a very low tolerance for stupidity.
I don't believe in anything and I certainly don't believe I can pull it off in four days.
I suggest you get your mental capacity checked by a professional. Good luck with that.
P.S.: luckily your "authoritative" opinion is not the only one that matters.
Quote from: bev2 on November 24, 2012, 07:02:39 PM
...
Finally, some constructive criticism! Thank you, I'll work on that.
I'll start manipulating my AA as well. I didn't do it before, I tried yesterday and I've seen
some improvement.
I am in an experimental stage now, trying to find a good way to approach this problem.