I have an appointment with the endo on March 29th. I want to start T then. I'm at university as a voice major right now though, and my singing teacher cautioned me against starting T before my final singing exam. He says he's understanding about the transition and will support my voice through the changes, but if I spend the entire year singing as a girl and then start having problems just as test time rolls around, it wouldn't be good. The test would likely be in early April.
How long after starting T does the voice start dropping? I'm worried that if I don't start T at the end of March I'll have to wait several more months.
Mine dropped drastically at 3 weeks and 2 days. It was cracking before that, probably at about 2 weeks.
It varies from person to person. Mine showed signs of dropping by 2 weeks, at 17 or 18 days my upper range went haywire. At 19 days it's definitely dropped, upper speaking voice cracks and I can hit about 3 notes above B consistently, none of them in the same key.
Mine showed signs of it a little after a week but nothing more than sounding like I have a cold. Now at 14/15 days, it's still getting there but hasn't really cracked during conversation. Only while singing.
My voice started to drop within the first week. The way the voice drops can be very harmful for singing. The way I've been feeling it is that...let's say you have a 4 octave range. What will start happening is the highest octave will start to go away and you'll gain a bit on the lower end of your register. For myself, big chunks of the higher end of my singing voice went away fast. I lost complete control and had a lot of crackling. My voice is probably in a tenor range but I have one controllable octave and the quality of my voice isn't entirely "male."
There are plenty of guys who have been singing through transition (Lucas Silveira) and were successful with transitioning their voices. I'm pretty sure that it's one of those "your mileage may vary" situations.
It definitely is YMMV. I'm no singer, but my experience has not been anywhere nearly as rapid.
I also think dosage is part of this. If you take a higher dose, the odds are more certain you won't have as long before your voice starts to change. Some guys who care more about preserving a singing voice start on a lower dose and are much more gradual in working up to a 'full' dose to help try to manage the voice change better. It doesn't guarantee anything, but it can help. And low dose means LOW dose (start with 1/4 to 1/3 of ultimate goal, build up, as opposed to the common "low" dose of 1/2 dose up to full dose within 6 weeks!
I don't understand why your options are 'get T now or in a few months from now,' because you can always get a prescription filled and get taught to inject & then do it for real a few weeks later - whether it is self-injecting or having someone else do it (a nurse or whomever). The endo himself need not be the one to give an injection, so if he is the one who is very booked, that shouldn't matter.
Wow I had no idea voice changes happened that quickly. Good to know. Anyone had problems with talking to teachers at their college? Like while going through the transition?
Quote from: Caleb on January 05, 2011, 09:26:11 AM
Wow I had no idea voice changes happened that quickly. Good to know. Anyone had problems with talking to teachers at their college? Like while going through the transition?
I didn't tell any of my teachers. I was stealth in college. The few people in the administration I had to tell were really cool with it. The only problem I had were people being TOO cool with it and talking to me about it all through the building and telling basically everyone which was a problem for me.
About the thread: Has anyone had issues explaining their voice dropping to people? I am stealth at work and I worry that their would be questions and possibly even gossip about why my voice is dropping so suddenly.
*Caleb: While I didn't go the root of Carson because I worried it being too much of a hassle, I did do what you're thinking. I have told each individual teacher for my past two semesters on the first day of class. Every one (given a forum class where names weren't used) of my professors has not had an issue. The women have been far nicer about it, the men have been awkward about it, but all-in-all it was fine. Given you're not going to some crazy religious college, your requests should be respected. PM me if need be. Good luck ;)
Sorry for thread jacking. :-X
Took about two weeks for it to start changing. It's still going down today after 8.5 months.
I'm tone deaf (even though I love to sing) so that really wasn't an issue for me.
Quote from: Caleb on January 05, 2011, 09:26:11 AM
Wow I had no idea voice changes happened that quickly. Good to know. Anyone had problems with talking to teachers at their college? Like while going through the transition?
It's not like you are going to wake up one day and be James Earl Jones. For people you see everyday they honestly won't notice at least they didn't with me. People for the most part don't notice little things unless they are extremely observant. They are more concerned with themselves.
However people I didn't see for a few months certainly remarked on the change. ("Your voice has changed! Does that hurt you?" uh, no)
Quote from: Squirrel698 on January 05, 2011, 11:41:22 AM
It's not like you are going to wake up one day and be James Earl Jones. For people you see everyday they honestly won't notice at least they didn't with me. People for the most part don't notice little things unless they are extremely observant.
People also really like it when you ask them, "Is my voice different?" "how about now?" How about now?" "Any different, can you tell?""Just checking."
So I encourage everyone to do that, as often as possible, to the people they see daily. They'll thank you for it. 8)
I had some mild changes in vocal control and quality in the first week or two that mostly just sounded like a mild cold. My upper singing range started to contract in weeks 2-3, I had some cracking and hoarseness in my speaking voice by the end of the first month, and my lower register started to expand around the same time. I didn't have a very noticeable change in my speaking pitch until the third month (when I also noticed a quite dramatic loss in my upper register and a distinct 'break' in my singing voice), but the quality of my speaking voice has been changing gradually throughout the time I've been on T.
Basically, if you have anything at all riding on your singing voice, don't start T until you've sung what you need to sing.
Oh - but if your endo will allow you to self-inject, or if you can go collect your prescription and then come in at a later time to get the injection done by a nurse (these being fairly common arrangements) then you don't have to start T on the day it's prescribed. If you talk to your endo about your concerns and reason for delaying a few weeks, s/he should be responsive to that.
Quote from: Wolf Man on January 05, 2011, 11:40:17 AM
About the thread: Has anyone had issues explaining their voice dropping to people? I am stealth at work and I worry that their would be questions and possibly even gossip about why my voice is dropping so suddenly.
If anyone asked, which they rarely did I just told them I was really late hitting puberty which people kind of assumed anyways seeing as I was in college with a high voice. They probably figured that it would have to drop sometime. There will more than likely be some guy who is like "dude, your balls finally dropped" lol and give everyone a good laugh as long as you keep cool about it.
Thanks everyone. I want to start T but I don't want to mess up my class. If I start in April after my singing test I'll have 4 or 5 months on T before I return to regular classes. I'm planning on moving slowly with the T so I might not have a lot of change by the time I go back to voice lessons, but hopefully there will be some. I'm hoping enough so that I can sing with the guys in choir.
I'm a 27 year old going to school with people who are 19 and 20, but I look really young so I blend in. They know me as a girl though. I don't pass yet. I wish I could pass without T. I'm not going to be able to be stealth while I'm at school, because my classmates will be in the music program with me for 4 years.
Quote from: Carson on January 05, 2011, 02:10:58 PM
"dude, your balls finally dropped" lol
Nice lol That makes me feel a bit better. I figured "late puberty" was what I should say since it kind of is. From the gossip I hear around work though, they just think I'm gay :/ Better than female :)
Jeh: Well, I do wish you some good times once you're on T. I'm sure things should go well. :)
Since you have that time after your singing final, delay starting T until then. My voice change began within two weeks and I was on a weekly dose for a smoother transition. I went from having a four and a half octave range (with the full soprano range) to a 1.5 octave range, all within the baritone, and this happened in 2 months. My voice never cracked and I can still sing properly but now the upper tenor range is too high and I cannot comfortably sing a song unless it's fitted into my now limited range.
I expect that I'll regain a broader range eventually as my voice settles. And you may not get a dramatic drop, it's always difficult to predict. But if you can bear to wait, wait.
I suppose I am a bit different. My voice started dropping at the 2 month point. At this point it started cracking all the time like a boy going through puberty and this lasted for awhile. The biggest drop was at the 4 month point and I have been on T for 8 months and it seems to have stayed the same because I do vlogs and don't see any change.
For me my voice was the first thing to change, it started probably within 2 weeks of going on T.
I can't wait to start T. I can usually pass fairly well until I open my mouth. Haha.
I would love to have my voice change. It doesn't give me away now though and I'm pre everything. So if I'm passing, my voice would not give me away. Though I do talk less when I'm trying to pass.
The voice changes would be one thing I'm looking forward to.
Wow...this is going WAY BACK to when I first went on T in the 1980's!
I think I noticed a distinct cracking within two weeks....it felt funny, just like a guy going through puberty....within a month it had stabilized at its new level....suffice to say it happens quickly.....
If you're not a singer, in the singing-alone-in-front-of-people sense, how do you figure out your vocal range? Beyond just figuring you probably sound like a girl or a guy depending on what hormones are currently in your system? Voice does not sound like a stringed instrument or a piano, not that I can match the pitch of one of the latter to the other (yay electronic tuners), but I'd like to have *some* idea of what my current singing-in-the-car-when-nobody's-listening range is, for a baseline measurement. Can you just sing into one of the tuners for any instrument, and have it tell you? (I've clocked streetcars at what must be a very low B, so it seems theoretically possible, to my non-musically-trained mind) Or do you need lots of musical training to be able to find out anything at all?