I was just listening to all of my classical music on shuffle mode and O' Sol Mio came on I tried to sing along and in a weird way I am sad I can't take my voice to the deeper end of the tenor spectrum any more.
I hear you. Sometimes I miss being able to sing along with second sopranos, but I do enjoy my new voice.
I never had any power in my voice and it woudl always sort of crack if I tried to sing high but now when I try to sing along to anything it makes it very rough and raspy the next day...so I have to clamp my mouth shut when any nice song comes on the radio.
so I have to clamp my mouth shut when any nice song comes on the radio.
Given the current state of radio your voice should be in near perfect condition. Unless you have an auto-tune in your car so you can sing along with Cher or Gaga.
Quote from: Binks on August 08, 2010, 08:56:59 PM
I was just listening to all of my classical music on shuffle mode and O' Sol Mio came on I tried to sing along and in a weird way I am sad I can't take my voice to the deeper end of the tenor spectrum any more.
Welcome to a very select club. Those of us for whom hormones DO affect voice. It happened to me. Yes my voice was always a high tenor but it definitely moved to Contralto on HRT.
Sadly as I am getting older it is not now as strong as it once was but in my younger days I have sung female light operatic roles successfully. Most notably:
Ruth in Gilbert & Sullivans Pirates of Penzance and Katisha in The Mikado - both roles required me to be made up to look like a rather plain old biddy - which isn't exactly every young girls dream - but hey - I was delighted to be able to sing a proper female role!
My voice hasn't really changed due to hormones. That is to say my lower range hasn't gone away but I have noticed significant gains in the upper register. While I'm no Sarah Brightman, I can easily sing Soprano II. The benefit of all that is that my relaxed speaking voice is significantly higher. I actually like having the flexibility of being able to drop my voice down to the male register.
Before transition I was a classically trained, semi-pro concert tenor. I didn't do operas, but I was a ringer for a few old-school Catholic church choirs on big holidays. I have experienced this loss of the lower register as well; however, I don't think it has anything to do with hormones so much as the standard "use it or lose it" adage in the vocal world.
The secret to a female voice put into singing terms is pretty simple: access the head voice and speak through it. Men speak through their chest voice: a rumbling, raspy, deep part of the voice created by testosterone. When we start speaking in female tones, and stop using that chest voice so often, the power of that portion of the voice slowly fades away. The same happens when you stop singing for a long while - the range of the voice contracts.
The voice doesn't change. I can still access my full tenor range, mind you, minus low G and a clear low A. The difference is where my breaks lie: I have a nasty break around F3/G3, which pretty much makes singing anything remotely baritone impossible; however, my voice is break free from A4 to A#5, and I have a richer, more "usable" falsetto up to about G5, so I can pull off alto in my daily voice and second soprano in falsetto. The timbre of my voice, with training and daily "passable female voice" use, now leans more female than male.
I guess I'm just saying "the hormones didn't do it: your vocal practice did it." The latter is far more impressive than the former, however. :D