i don't want to do the full medical shebang of a switch, mainly cos i want to live as my birth gender at least part of the time, and a lot of other reasons.
But i would love to make my voice more masculine somehow. Can i get a vocal coach or something? I would love to sound like Rob Halford (Judas Priest's lead singer) but just beiging called Sir on the phone would make me kinda happy.
tips?
Get punched in the throat a lot while trying to sing opera.
Annwyn's got it! :laugh: I hear that lady who went undercover as a man for a year, Norah Vincent, had a voice coach. It apparently worked for her.
Not a healthy answer but...smoke too much for 20 years.
I am on T but I have also just learned, through practice, to make my voice deeper. A coach could probably help or just practice.
Myles
Well, seek professional help. In my town there is a University Hospital and the Speech and Hearing Clinic does voice femininzation training. It is also part of some research and teaching, so there is a sliding scale available in case you are tight on money.
Men project their voices from deep in the throat or in the chest. Think of getting your voice from as deep as possible. Try to feel the rumblings from the solar plexus and let it boom. It worked for me so well I never needed amplification to be heard on noisy construction sites.
Julie
Since you're not extremely well schooled on the nuances of male-v-female voices (and it is a complex subject), you'll most likely need professional vocal-coach help to be able to carry on conversations in a passably male voice - and whatever you do, don't just lower your voice and think people will percieve you as male. They won't. They will percieve you as a girl who is speaking in an unusually low pitch. As any of the forum's girls will tell you, pitch (high or low) is NOT the determining factor in whether a voice is male or female - that's why a "flamer" homosexual man can speak in a constant near-falsetto without sounding female (and vice versa for an extremely butch lesbian). You will sound silly, and you will not sound male.
just practice being badass and yet deep.. these are qualities that seem to make ur voice more masculine.. i guess if u have this distinction
You have to get more bass out to sound male. I practice a lot, it feels funny in my chest when I'm doing it properly, much more vibraty (not a word but meh) than a female voice. I sing songs that are lower than my natural range to practice mostly, I try to make it sound natural and not just...low. At first my voice was constantly breaking and going out of tune because it wasn't my range but practice makes perfect. I have managed to drop it a bit, I now sound ridiculous when I try and sing some of the female songs I used to do really well.
Quote from: Jeatyn on August 12, 2009, 09:11:54 PM
You have to get more bass out to sound male. I practice a lot, it feels funny in my chest when I'm doing it properly, much more vibraty (not a word but meh) than a female voice. I sing songs that are lower than my natural range to practice mostly, I try to make it sound natural and not just...low. At first my voice was constantly breaking and going out of tune because it wasn't my range but practice makes perfect. I have managed to drop it a bit, I now sound ridiculous when I try and sing some of the female songs I used to do really well.
that's good to hear! i don't sing but for a few weeks i practiced with reading a book. and it seemed to work a little, but i got busy and spent a week with family etc. and now i sound squeaky again.
that's encouraging :)
hrmmm... training my speaking voice seems a bit too much like faking it to me? If it works for you, go for it, just not for me. I'm a little foggy on what "me" is, but i think my voice may be a part of it afterall.
Maybe if i combine it with something i can't do where i have to get a new voice anyway. Like kfixing my pronounciation in german? Do you think that would be harder or easier? I wouldn't have to re-learn the feminine way i sound already? and i'm not loosing any of my fragile "self" in the process, it's all gain. Hrmmm... this could be a tall order finding a german speaking voice coach? could just coppy TYill Leiderman, but i think he totally over-does it on the germanic probnounciation anyway (or so a german native speaker tells me anyway), and no born-woman (not even most born men) will sound half the man he is, ever.
I think i do REALLY want to sing like a man though. I can sing passably as a woman, but i don't like female vocalists at the best of times, and i don't think that singing voice is part of "me", i just don't like it. Ever since i was a kid i wanted to be in the boys section of the chior etc. I want to sing like a man, Rob Halford, Bruce Dickenson, Ronnie James Dio, heck, i'd settle for Blazze Bailey or Ripper Ownes!
Is this a reasonable ambition? I'm thinking not. There are heaps of men who can't sing like these guys :( hrmmm... and i'm not exactly high on musical tallent either. Is it worth a shot, or will i just get drepressed in the doomed failure?
I asked a male friend (who is also one of the best singers in town, performs live in several relatively successful bands) if he could teach me to sing like a man, and he innitially said yes, but then said that the only real option was the "death growl", that beastly androgyneous sound popular in modern metal. But i don't think that's very manly, i wouldn't sound like a man that way, i'd sound like the blonde barbie chick from Arch Enemy... i don't like Arch Enemy barbie...
Is ittotally hopeless to want to sing like a real man? a real metal god? or am i chassing rainbows here?
Do i need a singing teacher, or a trans vocal coach, or both?
metal angel: sure, go for it!! surely there's plenty of non-trans guys and girls that have had voice training for that kind of singing...i don't know though...hey, now you've got me all curious! :) *looks online*...
i don't think of voice training as faking...if my posture isn't good and is causing me pains, it's not being unlike my real Self to try and fix it so my back doesn't hurt. and if you wanted to be a good baseball pitcher, working your my arm wouldn't be any kind of betrayal. when i do practice, it goes easily, it's not like i'm fighting anything or doing anything i don't like. it seems to come natural.
there's times when someone asks me a question at work, and my voice goes two octaves higher. i don't want it to do that, it just does...and i need to practice to fix that. (especially as recently i was asked a question by a big guy in the men's room and i had to really catch myself and concentrate to not put on that high, customer service voice.)
Yeah not saying it's faking for other people to get voice training, just for me i think some of my identity is vested in my body and voice. Or maybe it's more if i try and fail to chage things like that i feel insecure about myself (like if i went out and attempted but didn't pass i'd feel worse than going out in a skirt), but if i learn something new (german or singing) it's all gain and no risk of loss? am i makig any sense? i doubt i do make sense sometimes...
either way... might give the singing a go...
Post Merge: August 17, 2009, 09:24:42 AM
what do i need more/first though a singing coach of a trans voice coach? i'm thinking singing... so long as i make my goals clear...
i don't have experience here and surely others here do
but maybe go for a singing coach? a. you sound very into that!! b. even if you got some sort of trans voice coach, they probably couldn't teach you metal style singing
I agree with petzjazz.......it's the hardest part of coaching......having people see the nuances between the voice of male and female gender speakers.
For many, many other reasons, treat yourself to watching 'Southern Comfort', and watch Robert Eades in his natural ftm day to day life. If you close your eyes, though, you are suddenly a bit confused about who you are hearing.....man, or woman?
Robert Eades passed seamlessly as a man, but you could hear many, many female qualities to his voice.
It's not the pitch.....it's modulation, articulation. It's a collection of a lifetime of vocal habits. For yourself, identify those habits, and try to break them.
I have a hard time getting back to my old voice, not that I really want to, but once in a blue moon.....I need to. And I hate doing it. Sometimes, I have to be 'Mike' on the phone, for just a few limited reasons. After I do, it messes up my alto singing voice for a day or so. That is how much my trained voice has really become my voice. It's not fake.....it's me.
Anyway, watch the movie, then close your eyes and listen to the qualities of Robert's voice that sound female. Then, open your eyes, and get a tissue.....it's a tear producing documentary. Then, have other people's eyes open as well, and share the movie with them.
Watch it on LogoOnline.com
Bev
that movie looks interesting but it seems i can't get it from logoOnLine outside the USA, am i likely to be able to find it on DVD?
Quote from: metal angel on August 18, 2009, 10:32:01 PM
that movie looks interesting but it seems i can't get it from logoOnLine outside the USA, am i likely to be able to find it on DVD?
amazon.com has it for $8.99
I feel the pain of your plight...my voice passed as male up til I hit my 20s...and now, I pass as a (young) teenager still, but god forbid they find out I'm 22. I also have a hard time with staying in tone, since I'll get caught up in the conversations and my pitch will increase with my volume as I get more excited...and my laugh is still a dead giveaway unless I watch it.
I actually smoked for a while to lower it, and that worked ...but wouldn't recommend it since it's not exactly healthy. I also found that many female voices have a "milk and honey" softness to them, while male voices seem to be more coarse...so if I needed that in a pinch, I just found a pillow and screamed into it for about 30 seconds or a minute. Again, probably dangerous to your vocal chords if you do it too often.
Get two death metal guitarists and go kick some ass! >:-)
Band Practice growlin girl (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pKmCStDwsb4#lq-lq2-hq)
hrmmm... i dunno, death growls are kinda androgyneous? either sex can kinda do it, just more men do it well, almost as androgyneous as death metal guitar?
The difference is the guys can do a good strong scream. I managed to get my screams from "maiden ion distress" to "screatching hag" but still couldn't get the ripper screams. Do you know any women who can do a good scream without it turning to shreiky? (he he he... my neighbours will kill you...)
Now that would satisfy me, if i could hit those high notes without sounding feminine...
hrmmm.... maybe i should start by just hitting any NOTE... hrmmm... wonder if my forraies into bass and guitar will help?
Complete lack of musical tallent could be a hinderance here? Maybe ui should go back to the improve my german accent idea?
Honestly, but just in my opinion, I don't think really you can make your voice masculine at all.
Look, I'm a guy and it's difficult to me to make my own voice sound manly at all! I don't have a "camp" voice but I do have this semi-girlish voice that won't go away unless I spend the night before drinking tequila. I've tried to sound like a guy for like 10 years until finally I came to the conclusion that I can't and I don't care anymore.
It's easier for a guy to emulate a feminine voice because one octave up is still within a guy's range, but one octave down it's just out of a woman's anatomical range.
Quote from: Dominiq on August 21, 2009, 01:09:37 PM
Honestly, but just in my opinion, I don't think really you can make your voice masculine at all.
Look, I'm a guy and it's difficult to me to make my own voice sound manly at all! I don't have a "camp" voice but I do have this semi-girlish voice that won't go away unless I spend the night before drinking tequila. I've tried to sound like a guy for like 10 years until finally I came to the conclusion that I can't and I don't care anymore.
It's easier for a guy to emulate a feminine voice because one octave up is still within a guy's range, but one octave down it's just out of a woman's anatomical range.
Someone better tell the FTM's I know in my town that they can not do what they do then. :-\ Really... a voice is a lot more than pitch. How you speak, the words, the patterns, cadence, and many other bits ... all are gender markers. Trust me on this one, there are many FTM's who do a perfectly fine male voice - and some an octave down from their normal speaking voice.
the words hey?
Well i've probably got that worked out already? I pass 100% on the web, sometimes when i'm not even trying. The only time i'm picked as a female is when i've picked a female avitar or said something obvious like "how do i hold my bass without my tits getting in the way".
I almost alwayse go as a guy on-line (it's the only place i can pass so i feel i should take advantage), except sites where i'm interracting with people who've seen me in person, or there was one site where i was talking a lot about women's health and i thought it would seem weird to know so much as a guy.
I guess some of it is my interests, for some reason (long story) i was looking at the genders on the profiles of one of the sites i've been on a lot and they were all male. Guess that's why they assumed i was one of the guys? they were even saying things like "sorry Sir, but you are wrong" and "(about me) i think what the original poster meant by his question was..." I liked that :D
I also really liked it once when while i was stull pretty much a kid i sent a letter of complaint to a TV station with my phone-number as a contact. I signed it with just my surname and innitials. They rang my house and asked for Mr. (Surname) and confused the heck out of my dad for a while untill they worked out it was me who wrote the letter. I wonder why they picked Mr? I wonder whether it was my writing style or whether it was just they figurred they wanted to use a title and Mr would be more offended by bing called Ms than a Ms would be by being caolled Mr?
Actually some of the F2Ms here seem to have a certain female vibe to what they say, but maybe i'm just kidding myself since i know their history.
...and yeah, it's definately not just pitch, heavy metal vocalists often do some very high-pitched screams which are still distinctly male. The same pitch from a woman would have a "maiden in destress" or "screatching hag" vibe.
like rob Halford
Judas Priest - Dissident Aggressor (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H_mpt8xyZVI#normal)
i think there's a touch of "studio majic" on that first wail, but some of it's organic
or halford about 35 years after that first recording...
JUDAS PRIEST - THE RIPPER (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A5rekzuLS_0&feature=related#normal)
^ that's not his best performance, but it's definately not feminine dsespite the pitch
or even Alchemist (about 1 minute 27 seconds in)
Alchemist...Chinese Whispers (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jrbJkTqXw_k#normal)
Ok, ok, I get that there's some field to play within your natural range, was just saying the range is narrower on females.
There are a couple of useful hints here http://www.hodu.com/pitch.shtml (http://www.hodu.com/pitch.shtml)
The last one seems quite appropriate, speaking from your chest rather than from your head.
The other thing is having a couple of drinks :-) . I always come back with a really low voice after a night out, especially if I go clubbing or to a gig, which I think is related to the "talk-from-the-body principle" mentioned in that article, because after moving your body for some time, you naturally start speaking from it rather than from your head, the voice just flows from deeper within.
I'm not saying it's a good idea to start drinking just to get a low pitch voice, but if you already are going out, and if you like clubbing a bit (or going to gigs), see if that helps you to at least get an idea of how low your voice can get, because what happens is that alcohol and dancing/jumping relaxes all the muscles, including the ones on your throat.
Also quite possibly, and this comes to my mind only now, doing some yoga exercises can relax the muscles that are involved in breathing and get you a deeper voice.
I would be interested to hear if anything of what's been saying here helps you in any way.
Good luck
I think what would really please me would be able to do "strong" high notes like ripper owens etc. I want more the strenght than the depth. I guess deep would be nice, but strong high notes is the clincher, if i can sound like a guy even up at the high notes that's a real art? Sort of like if you can pass for a guy by looks even with your hair long and a bit of black eyeliner?
but you make an interesting point, i had a fried who alwayse though i sang a lot better when drunk, i thought it was just that she was almost invariably also drunk and had lower standards, but maybe she was right?