My question to you is how do you deal with voice Dysphoria while learning to sing, ive been learning to sing for awhile and i just cant help but hear that male voice (in recordings), in my head i wanna sound like Amy Lee or Christina Aguilera but when i hear myself its really disheartening and i am decent im not great but im not terrible even tho i think i am because i hear that male voice
So how did you cope with that before transitioning? ie learning to sing with voice Dysphoria
I'm assuming you're seeing a speech pathologist? Singing is one of the steps to learning the female voice. Or at least it was for me. Practice will get you there. Its more about breath control when maintaining the upper registers. When you begin to run short of breath you will naturally tighten the muscles in your neck and begin to drop back into the lower registers. For me, it was learning to manage my breathing. After that, it's all about muscle memory and practice. It can be disheartening at first. The key is to realize that to get to where you want to be, you had to start somewhere. Another thought would be if your natural voice may not be able to reach the pitch you're trying to sing in. You may need to lower the frequency until you have that, then slowly train yourself to go higher. You'll have it down pat and soon forget how your male voice sounded. I'm sadly still working on the muscle memory part. I get terrible anxiety when speaking with people for the first time, or being put on the spot and I immediatly drop to my male range. It's reflex and 38 years of training to go deeper with my voice. On a good day when I'm relaxed, I zero issues speaking or singing in the upper registers. You'll get there in time. :)
I enjoy singing; sometimes my husband gives me a thumbs up, and he's a tough audience, but I'm not planning to book any studio time just yet, 😝
Quote from: Harley Quinn on February 08, 2018, 10:56:22 AM
I'm assuming you're seeing a speech pathologist? Singing is one of the steps to learning the female voice. Or at least it was for me. Practice will get you there. Its more about breath control when maintaining the upper registers. When you begin to run short of breath you will naturally tighten the muscles in your neck and begin to drop back into the lower registers. For me, it was learning to manage my breathing. After that, it's all about muscle memory and practice. It can be disheartening at first. The key is to realize that to get to where you want to be, you had to start somewhere. Another thought would be if your natural voice may not be able to reach the pitch you're trying to sing in. You may need to lower the frequency until you have that, then slowly train yourself to go higher. You'll have it down pat and soon forget how your male voice sounded. I'm sadly still working on the muscle memory part. I get terrible anxiety when speaking with people for the first time, or being put on the spot and I immediatly drop to my male range. It's reflex and 38 years of training to go deeper with my voice. On a good day when I'm relaxed, I zero issues speaking or singing in the upper registers. You'll get there in time. :)
No i havent seen a speech pathologist, im not currently out as Trans yet ive only just really accepted it, I have been classically trained somewhat, however i was classically trained as a guy, it felt like when i was going through that i was always trying to pitch to my female teacher but being told not to (cus she didnt know and just thought your a guy, thats not how it goes)
But you have been helpful for when i decide to start transitioning, because i still want to be able to sing, and obviously there are alot of mtf voice training exercises but nothing much on singing
I don't know anything about Amy Lee but I saw the movie Burlesque (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1126591/?ref_=nv_sr_1) and very few CIS women can sing like Christina Aguilera. She is cable of belting a song while still maintaining full control of her voice and I was unsure if some of the songs were dubbed because of the flexibility of her singing voice. You may be able to sing but it will be in your own voice and not that of the few people who are born with a very special voice.
Speech Pathologists do more than just Transgender Voice training. Vocal hygine, vocal rehab, speech training etc... So don't think that you're going to be outted as Trans for seeing one. Glad I could help. :)
From my experience Amy Lee only sounds good autotuned, or maybe I just caught her on a bad night.
I can sing halfway well now. Working at that was a HUGE help for me while doing voice development.
I'm a singer and also going through speech therapy (she's also a vocal coach) - its done absolute wonders for my singing voice control so far as well as my speaking. So much of how women sound is not down to pitch but articulation and breathing - honestly go and have speech therapy if singing is important for you