Hello all. i tried changing my voice a few months ago, but I couldn't do it, so after about 3 days I gave up. Now I'm trying again, and nothing is different than last time.

I've noticed that most people are saying that you need to bring your voice into a falsetto, and then bring it down. But there's a few things I'm not understanding about this premise:

1. If you go into a falsetto, and then bring your voice down, won't you just be back where you started?

2. If you're supposed to bring it down somewhere between your natural voice and your falsetto, why do you need to go to a falsetto first?

I'm just really confused by this, and literally every video and website is saying it. Can someone please explain to me how this works?

I think it's a questionable way of explaining how to breath and talk using the upper part of your respiratory tract (mouth, nose and throat) and finding a way to get your voice box a little higher so that everything matches up. This is since the way the voice is used is a lot more important than just the pitch and overdoing pitch can make it more difficult to practice the above throat and breath control.

Quote from: riversong on July 17, 2013, 11:48:17 AM
Hello all. i tried changing my voice a few months ago, but I couldn't do it, so after about 3 days I gave up. Now I'm trying again, and nothing is different than last time.

I've noticed that most people are saying that you need to bring your voice into a falsetto, and then bring it down. But there's a few things I'm not understanding about this premise:

1. If you go into a falsetto, and then bring your voice down, won't you just be back where you started?

2. If you're supposed to bring it down somewhere between your natural voice and your falsetto, why do you need to go to a falsetto first?

I'm just really confused by this, and literally every video and website is saying it. Can someone please explain to me how this works?

I never understood it and never needed to, and no speech therapist I ever saw recommended it.

So basically, you're just establishing a range, and settling at a midpoint between the falsetto and the natural voice?

I haven't done a lot of voice stuff (in fact my voice is still too low to pass as a woman), but I always thought of it like this:

If you weigh 200 lbs, and you get a scale that can go to 200 lbs, chances are good that you won't get an accurate measure. Things like weight scales (and voice boxes) get kinda wonky when they're at their limits. What you would need is a scale that can measure 300+ lbs, so that your actual weight is more in the middle--which is where the most accuracy is.

With a voice box, you want to be able to establish the highest you're able to do...and then go back down partway, not to male range, not falsetto, but somewhere in the middle so you could (with practice) sustain that level indefinitely.

Pitch (frequency) is one element, resonance is another. Guys resonate from the chest, girls resonate from the throat. Raising pitch, by itself, won't bring on a femme sound; raising pitch + raising the location of the resonance = femme voice.

From what I've heard about the "lift then drop" technique, it's not just a matter of going into falsetto, you need to squeeze the voice a bit once you get up there, and then keep that "squeezed" sound as you come back down into your normal voice.

Basically, it's just a matter of muscle training. In order to attain a female resonance, there is a muscle in the back of the throat that needs to be trained. Most people can't just access this resonance-altering muscle in their normal voice range when they first start out. Going into falsetto, however, almost anyone can use these muscles if they squeeze their voice while in the high range. And if you do this exercise enough, eventually that back-of-the-throat muscle gets trained to where you begin to gain control of it, which will allow you to use that higher resonance while you're down in your normal chest voice.

It's not a matter of the falsetto range being a genuine female voice that you actually want to use. And it's also not about finding a female voice instantly by doing this "trick." It's about repeated practice, until one learns to use this resonance-altering muscle in the back of the throat. And eventually through months and months and months of practice, repetition, repetition, repetition, repetition, just like a physical workout or like learning to play a new instrument, eventually you learn to control that muscle, and THEN you can come back down to a more normal speaking range and yet still have the ability to use this back-of-the throat resonance-altering muscle. And with enough use, as the muscle gets stronger and stronger, it actually alters the pitch and resonance of your natural speaking voice, to the point where it will take conscious effort to go back down into a male range and resonance.

So yeah... that's what it's about. The falsetto has nothing to do with actually finding a voice in that area. But it has EVERYTHING to do with "training" the throat to speak with a more female resonance.

Quote from: Carrie Liz on July 17, 2013, 01:12:41 PM
From what I've heard about the "lift then drop" technique, it's not just a matter of going into falsetto, you need to squeeze the voice a bit once you get up there, and then keep that "squeezed" sound as you come back down into your normal voice.

Basically, it's just a matter of muscle training. In order to attain a female resonance, there is a muscle in the back of the throat that needs to be trained. Most people can't just access this resonance-altering muscle in their normal voice range when they first start out. Going into falsetto, however, almost anyone can use these muscles if they squeeze their voice while in the high range. And if you do this exercise enough, eventually that back-of-the-throat muscle gets trained to where you begin to gain control of it, which will allow you to use that higher resonance while you're down in your normal chest voice.

It's not a matter of the falsetto range being a genuine female voice that you actually want to use. And it's also not about finding a female voice instantly by doing this "trick." It's about repeated practice, until one learns to use this resonance-altering muscle in the back of the throat. And eventually through months and months and months of practice, repetition, repetition, repetition, repetition, just like a physical workout or like learning to play a new instrument, eventually you learn to control that muscle, and THEN you can come back down to a more normal speaking range and yet still have the ability to use this back-of-the throat resonance-altering muscle. And with enough use, as the muscle gets stronger and stronger, it actually alters the pitch and resonance of your natural speaking voice, to the point where it will take conscious effort to go back down into a male range and resonance.

So yeah... that's what it's about. The falsetto has nothing to do with actually finding a voice in that area. But it has EVERYTHING to do with "training" the throat to speak with a more female resonance.

That gives me some great insight into what's actually going on. Thanks!

But how do you know whether or not you're actually using that muscle?

Basically what you need to do is "push it forward" once you're in the falsetto range, if that makes any sense. Like when a guy naturally goes into falsetto, you should feel the vibrations more in the back of the top of the throat. What you need to do is push it forward... picture squishing your voice higher and up into the front of your head until it feels more like it's coming from just behind the mouth/nose instead of back in the throat. Your voice should start to sound softer and breathier, with a lot more of a whispery sound to it. And you should be able to feel a slight "lift" in the back of your throat. If you can feel that "lift," and your voice sounds like you're doing a bad impression of a phone-sex worker, then you're doing it right.

You don't have to use that exact method to practice so long as you can feel that back-of the throat muscle "lifting." And once you get the hang of how to use that muscle, you're on the right track.

I recommend recording yourself with a voice-recorder of some sort. And basically just pay attention to how your voice muscles feel as you're doing different voices, and take note of how the "feel" of those different muscles as you're speaking changes the way that your voice sounds. And again, there should be a muscle in the back of the throat that makes the voice sound more whispery and hushed and feminine. Try to learn how the muscles "feel" when you're doing that voice, and eventually you'll learn to use them with repeated practice.

Quote from: riversong on July 17, 2013, 11:48:17 AM
Hello all. i tried changing my voice a few months ago, but I couldn't do it, so after about 3 days I gave up. Now I'm trying again, and nothing is different than last time.

I've noticed that most people are saying that you need to bring your voice into a falsetto, and then bring it down. But there's a few things I'm not understanding about this premise:

1. If you go into a falsetto, and then bring your voice down, won't you just be back where you started?

2. If you're supposed to bring it down somewhere between your natural voice and your falsetto, why do you need to go to a falsetto first?

I'm just really confused by this, and literally every video and website is saying it. Can someone please explain to me how this works?

You quit after just three days?

It takes time to retrain your throat muscles.  I have a very good MtF friend who kept a video log each month about her improvement.  It took her three months to go from an androgynous voice to a female voice.  And she has improved that over the past year.

Try singing female parts in your car or when you are alone.  It really does help.

Yea, the problem is though I have no way of knowing if I'm actually training it or not. It felt like all I was doing was the same thing over and over again, with no sign of progress. How do I know that I'm actually improving, and doing it right?

Three days is NOT enough to notice any progress whatsoever. Usually it takes me almost 2 months before I can really look back and see progress. I saw a big difference between my starting voice and my voice in March, then another big difference between March and May, and now another big difference between May and July. I am just now getting to the point where people are mis-gendering my natural speaking voice, and it took me 6 months to get this far. And I still have a long way to go.

It takes a LONG time. A VERY long time. You are NOT going to notice any differences after three days. It takes months and months and months of practice, doing the same exercises over and over and over again while not being able to notice any progress whatsoever, but still diligently sticking to them, and then a couple of months later you look back and notice that you've made some progress. That is how it works. It is NOT fast, and you will NOT be able to consciously notice the change. Just stick to it diligently, try to practice at least a little bit every day, don't overdo it, and don't expect to consciously notice any changes, and the changes will come. Slowly, slowly, slowly, over months and months and months, they will come.

Again, I've been doing voice therapy for 6 months now. And I am JUST starting to get to the point where speaking with a voice that's gendered as female over the phone is coming naturally.

My voice is a long way off but I have easily raised the pitch and changed my resonance though it is not female without doing any of this falsetto stuff.

Like Carrie says it is slow as hell, and yes it does feel like you are doing the same thing again and again without improvement but that is how it is.

I know I have made progress because I have a whole lot more control over all aspect of my voice now than when I started, even if I still do not have the control to make it sound how I want.

I start proper speech therapy next month.

The idea of going falsetto is probably the wrong way to express what you must do.  It's about changing inflection and softening the voice as much as it is about changing pitch.  In fact, pitch is probably the least important part.  I suspect the falsetto thing is about changing the part of your voice box the sound is coming from.

I believe you want most of the vibration in your voice box to come from the top end.  Putting your hand on your throat and speaking you want most if not all of the vibration you feel to come from the top of your voicebox not the bottom.  going Falsetto and brining the voice down is one way to achieve this change in vibration, not the aim of the exercise.

Wow.  Read this thread and had to register.

Quote from: riversong on July 17, 2013, 11:48:17 AM
1. If you go into a falsetto, and then bring your voice down, won't you just be back where you started?

Not necessarily.  But I have yet to see a voice feminization guide that covers this topic as well as singing instruction does.  Super short version: there are two sets of muscles that control voice pitch:
- thyroarytenoid (TA) - a band of muscle inside each vocal fold
- cricothyroid (CT) - a muscle around the voice box that tilts it atop the windpipe

When you bring your head voice or falsetto down, you use more CT than TA, vs a masculine speaking voice with more TA than CT.  This has a huge impact on how well you can modulate your pitch up and down.





It's very hard (and likely harmful) to push a virilized chest voice above 350 Hz or so.  But in my head voice, I can break 700Hz comfortably.  Looking at sonograms tells me that's plenty high; 200-600Hz covers the speaking range of many, many women.  The trick is smoothly connecting head voice to high chest voice to fill in the bottom of that range.   

Fortunately, this is a problem every cis-male vocalist has, so we can crib their techniques.  If you can sing a halfway-decent tenor, you've done the majority of the physical work needed for a feminine voice.

And it is work, because most everyone with a male voice has wimpy underdeveloped CT muscles.  Exercising them doesn't cause pain - unless you're doing it wrong - but it does take dedication.


Head voice sounds pretty androgynous, to my ears at least.  Depending on how it's developed and used, it can sound more masculine or more feminine.

Like, give this guy a listen:

Okay, now this is Steve Perry of Journey and he's doing some things to masculinize his head voice, but I want you to look at a picture of Aretha Franklin while you listen to "".  Nifty illusion, isn't it?

Finally, anything Jon Bon Jovi after '97 or so is a fantastic, thoroughly masculinized head voice.  (And before that, you can hear a talented singer shredding his chest voice.)

It's not the equipment, it's how you use it.


So the stage I'm at is singing along with alto songs (maybe some soprano, maybe some high head-voice male rock stuff) for a half hour a day or so, both real singing and vocalizing through a thin straw (less vocal stress that way).  It's more important to stretch down than up and of course not force anything. 

Later steps would be softening the intensity from singing to speech, adding breathy phonation, and feminine pitch-accent.

MelodyPond - erh I mean Riversong of course - 3 days really is not much. I think you should not put pressure on this. I believe the falsetto tip is something that serves two purposes. One is to get more comfortable with the abilities of your voice. This is not so much important if you are a singer or like to sing or make funny voices a lot anyways, but for many people there is only one voice and no thought is put into that. Doing falsetto and Mickey Mouse and such changes that. The other effect is as was mentioned before that if you try to speak really high, falsetto and then even higher you automatically start to speak softer, to eliminate lower resonance frequencies from the voice because all of this helps to get to that ultrahigh voice. Then at that point you are free of these lower resonances and the trick then is to go down back to a regular pitch but to keep that feeling, the muscle tension, that allows you to keep these low resonances out. It takes some experimenting what to keep and what not - if you dont keep the right things you will either just fall back to regular voice or your muscles in the throat will start to hurt because you are using too many of them. (Oh my - please if there are any voice therapists or medics reading this, dont kill me ). A way to check for this is to put your fingers over your voice box at the throat and speak. if you feel vibrations at the lower end, those are the low, "male" resonances, the vibrations at the upper end are the higher frequencies and resonances that you want to keep. Playing with falsetto or Ultrahigh voices as well as your unaltered voice will give you an impression of this difference in resonances that you can feel at the throat (upper vs lower) - then next time you try it, you can play with the throat muscles to get rid of the lower resonances - or go to that ultrahigh or falsetto voice until the lower resonances are gone and then slowly go back down with the pitch but take care of keeping out these low resonances. If they come back, you know you just relaxed one muscle that you should keep active to have a female voice.

Gosh and this is me giving advice from memory about how I did it when nowadays I have to practice this myself again - But I know it worked back then so it will work for me again and it will work for anyone else I hope.

The drawback relative to surgery certainly is that one can slip up. But I really dont like that surgery - one friend did that and it was quite a procedure. Interestingly the effect sounded a bit like that voice training - the post op voice was ultrahigh like Mickey mouse and falsetto combined and then the voice settled down over the coming months to one that had lower pitch again but less of the low resonances. So I guess the surgery does something similar as this training, but on a more permanent basis??

One thing to note about that method wito get the voice trained by falsetto and "pinching" and then lowering. To check if you are in the right "mode" afterwards, try to go as low as possible. You will notice that you will hit as much a wall as you would otherwise in terms of high pitch, meaning that you just cannot do it and trying so causes a strain in the throat. If I switch to the female voice as it is described in these videos, and try to lower pitch, I cannot even go as deep as I can with the male voice and in fact if I try to speak at that pitch then it sounds awfully like if one of my female friends tries to make a male voice for impersonating some movie scene - I just thought this may be a good indicator of being in the right "mode" - if you cannot bring the pitch down low, you are in the right mode.

I'm going baritone to alto, and the "floor" to my pitch is really low, like contralto low or even too low even if I keep the resonance.

Speaking in head voice all the time, I'd be worried about vocal strain.

Or, audio response.
https://soundcloud.com/musicofthenight/mixed-voice/s-f9Fme

musicofthe night , I am not exactly sure on what you are saying in the audio response there except that you are worried about speaking too much in the head voice, which I guess (!?) is what the "falsetto" technique is promoting to a degree. I think this worry is not without a basis and I am not sure if part of why it failed me long term was that it did produce some more strain. However definitely letting these low resonances just go wild is no option and certainly simply increasing pitch is non either for me. So I would say that this falsetto-headspace technique is a decent work to start, but one possibly has to "mix in" something else from the chest voice to make it sound better, but to hit that balance seems to be very hard.
Now, I am currently trying this technique again and found that I can still do it and that the result indeed is mostly a head voice, but I think it should be possible from there on to develop that more. I found that there is potential to "open up" with that, so that the voice will be louder and to include some resonances that make it sound less "heady". I definitely think that pitch is not as crucial, though I personally seem to need some pitch changes as it bugs me a lot if people ask me why I have such a low pitched voice. I have the feeling though that the differenc between a low pitched voice without a voice changing technique promoted questions like "why do you talk like a guy" while if using the technique questions are more about the pitch itself without the gender reference. But thats just a tendency.

Now I dont know if there IS any technique of changing the voice to make it sound female that does not put strin on the voice - in any case it is an alteration of the speech patterns and muscle tensions and thus does strain the voice. I would be interested to know if this is a temporary strain (which can be dealt with by training, just like going hiking for longer and longer until it is hard to stand still ) or if it is a permament one (like getting erosion in a joint that is used in the wrong way for too long while hiking in a bad way)? Do you have a lot of experience with that?

It might help to go to youtube and view all of the CandiFLA videos about voice, in chronological order. (if you haven't already) Sometimes I run across a natural born woman who uses falsetto, but that is very rare. They don't even realize they are doing it. Not a good thing.

Quote from: Nicolette on July 17, 2013, 12:03:24 PM
I never understood it and never needed to, and no speech therapist I ever saw recommended it.

I agree. That never made any sense to me at all. I even tried it. I can do squeaky high voices like Elmo with no problem. But you want to talk in your mixed head/chest voice, not in falsetto. You also want to push the break point between your head voice and falsetto up as high as you can. So except for inflections, you don't use falsetto at all.

I just got the Andrea James DVDs, and I was surprised that it was fairly easy for me, because that's the same spot I sing in a lot. So I talk like I'm singing. lol

I just started working on it, but here's a funny story; one of the bands I play in was all packed up at 3am Saturday night, and we went to Quick Check to get something to eat. They have a kiosk where you can order a sandwich, and it has a pleasant sounding female voice that prompts you. I was standing behind our  sound man when the kiosk said "Press a button to order" so I repeated in that line, trying to match the voice, and he got a confused look on his face and turned around and said "holy ->-bleeped-<-, was that you? You sounded just like her!" Made me feel good. I have to work on my tone though.