Hi, I have been practicing my female voice, and I can't seem to get it down. I have been trying to go into falsetto and then bring my voice back down to find the feminine range but have had no luck. I have been trying to do exercises to stretch my vocal chords but am having difficulty. Even talking in a sing song type of speech pattern I find difficult. I don't why I can't grasp simple concepts. Thanks for all the help.
Lauren, is there any chance of finding a voice therapist? I believe some decent ones are online now, I don't know how effective that is. I would also suggest maybe buying Melanie Phillips or Andrea James CD. Do you have a decent ($60 - $80) voice recorder that plugs into your computer so you can practice and download your practice sessions in chronological order. I remember when I was pre-transition just crying over my voice thinking "NOTHING IS CHANGING!!!" It takes a lot of practice and determination for some people. The important thing is that you don't give up. Obviously voice is super important to you. Find models of voice for you, hear the way they speak, mimic it, practice getting to know your mouth, nose, vocal chords, etc. Make funny sounds. You also need a good spectrograph to analyze your voice for pitch and quality levels, which are small parts of speech but important, nevertheless. 190 -225 is where you want to be with lots of range. (sorry this is choppy thoughts, I'm just throwing stuff out there) Go online and search Harvard Sentences." There are about 200 of them and they are specifically developed to practice all the different parts of the english language. It's an awesome practice tool. If you are not yet full-time there is only so much you can do for your voice. If you are going back and forth between boy voice and girl voice, you won't be able to stay in just one for long, they will blend together.
I think one of the big, big things is making sure you are out to people and then asking them to work with you and give you advice. If they think you sound different, ask them how you are sounding. I remember going from boy voice to girl voice my brother would say "dude, you sound GAY" and I knew it was taking a few hours to go back to boy voice. It isn't just pitch, it's inflection and how you say words. That is hard to just flick a switch and change I think.
So don't get frustrated! Practice 10-15 minutes a day. The hardest thing about voice is that no one really can give you detailed instructions on how to do it so that it works for everyone. You will hear yourself, ESPECIALLY if recorded, and think 'omg, I sound so dumb, I'm done with this, NO MORE!" but you have to work through that! There is light at the end of the tunnel. Think of what you have riding on making this work! You can do it :) Meghan
Hi Meghan, I love your youtube channel. I am known as TSlauren on youtube. I used to be Lauren333 on youtube before it made you get a google account. I don't have a high quality recorder. I have been using the one that comes with all PC's. I have been using the sound recorder under the entertainment section in the windows start menu. I know it is not the best thing in the world, but it is all I have for now. Thanks for the advice. Your lighting in your videos is a lot better. You rock and so does your voice.
Hi Lauren :) Thank you so much! I'll just answer you question here if I can. So with the spectrograph, you want to see the frequency marks (there should be a place in the file menu where you can choose your freq marks) set to like 190-225 or so. Click 'scan input' and make sure you have your cam or mic hooked up. You should see something that looks like this:
(https://www.susans.org/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi184.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fx153%2Fmeghanandrews%2F051710concetrated.jpg&hash=9cd7fe7f3192177e73754dc0010e15719b090af7)
You want to look at the bottom most blue line, the solid one, the one that runs nearest the red lines, see that? That is your pitch and the crispness of the line is a good indicator of quality but if you don't have a good microphone (I don't) it won't be very accurate (it picks up outside noise like noisy computers). So the trick is to hum and make sounds like uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh and ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh and mmmmmmmmmmmm (that's the easiest to start with) until you are setting a solid bottom line above the red. Then vary the humming so you get used to manipulating your voice to move the bar. Then you use the Harvard Sentences, use the ones that begin with M or have lots of M's in them first, to practice speaking in the same tone you got when you were humming. Then just hum a little, then say a word, hum, say a word. Don't shoot for like super high right away! If you normal speaking voice is like well below the red line, practice at the red line or a little below. Once you feel comfortable getting like to the red line, then make that your place for a month or so and get used to it. Then take it higher. Until it feels natural and you aren't straining, that's important! I hope this helps, stay strong :)
Meghan thanks for the info, and thanks to Lauren posting this it has given me some valuable information.
I've been using Garage Band on my Mac for recording my voice and listening back.