Quote from: ImagineKate on November 22, 2014, 01:03:17 PM
The problem is that this is my native accent and if I don't sound natural I would be read rather quickly.

Unfortunately it is a safety issue as gays get 25 years in jail and transgender people are lumped in with them, plus violence can and does happen (and I can't carry a weapon or even mace or pepper spray there). The laws are rarely enforced but there is always the risk...

In any case my speech therapist assures me that she would be able to work with the accent as well. The inflections for that dialect aren't hard to learn.

Umm Kate, not such a nice place for trans people, but I guess that you have no choice but to return from time to time for family or some other reason.

To be honest, I don't think you'd have trouble with the accent - it's a rather attractive one in my opinion - and one you already know.  Compared with the effort to get your girl voice going, the rest will be simple.

Here's my voice, http://vocaroo.com/i/s01uDZuMY0XL

The best advice I can give is to use your female voice as much as you possibly can. When I first started out I could barely get my voice to be higher pitched than my normal male voice but every morning and afternoon going to & from work I used my female voice. I talked to myself, I sung along to the radio and about every two weeks I challenged myself to go outside of my new comfort zone and go a little higher with my voice then I'd drop back down a tiny bit to try to make this new level my new I can consistently use voice. This takes a LOT of time to accomplish and even after just over a year of working on my voice I still feel like I can safely keep pushing and pushing my voice higher and higher as I've basically allowed my voice to slowly but surely build up that strength & endurance over that time instead of pushing way too hard and doing damage.

When I came out at work my boss put me in touch with a voice therapist not knowing that I had been working on my voice. When I met her just to talk for a little bit she was blown away and the only tip she could offer was to keep doing exactly what I'm doing as it is working for me.

Indeed - this is a great voice - and its fun how you can switch between them. i find it interesting that it has some "roughness" to it that still sounds feminine - something my voice therapist tries to eliminate from my voice - trying to make it as smooth as possible. Obviously that is not needed always .
Voice training to soomething that is stable and has endurance is really a lot of work, my therapist said it is basically like always doing singing or acting in a play - it is using the voice in a manner that takes control - just like it does in performing. And she was in a way amazed that this can work for so many - to bascially be a voice performer permanently. She was clear though that this voice then needs a lot of care, jus tlike with performers - keep it hydrated, do voice training and relaxation every day just like singers do, avoid overstraining - and of course take care to use it the right way so it does not get damaged with time.

Quote from: Hanazono on November 22, 2014, 11:51:38 PM
I'm pretty blown away too. you have such a beautiful voice, you should be working in the news channel! oh my goodness!

Thanks! I have been told similar things quite often lately which makes all the work that I've put into my voice that more worth it.

Quote from: anjaq on November 23, 2014, 05:52:58 AM
Indeed - this is a great voice - and its fun how you can switch between them. i find it interesting that it has some "roughness" to it that still sounds feminine - something my voice therapist tries to eliminate from my voice - trying to make it as smooth as possible. Obviously that is not needed always .
Voice training to soomething that is stable and has endurance is really a lot of work, my therapist said it is basically like always doing singing or acting in a play - it is using the voice in a manner that takes control - just like it does in performing. And she was in a way amazed that this can work for so many - to bascially be a voice performer permanently. She was clear though that this voice then needs a lot of care, jus tlike with performers - keep it hydrated, do voice training and relaxation every day just like singers do, avoid overstraining - and of course take care to use it the right way so it does not get damaged with time.

Thanks! That roughness is from being sick for the last two weeks, I'm finally in the end stages of having a cold and my voice is a little more rough sounding than it normally is. I like to think the reason why I can easily switch back and fourth between my male register and female register is all due to the control I've gained over my voice box. It can be fun & funny to use as I've tested my voice out numerous times when I was still living part time at fast food drive thru where I order in my female voice, get gendered female and then show up to the window in guy mode with my guy voice. I confused this one woman so much that I felt bad for doing it and stopped doing that as I had learned at that point that my voice was a ok and I needed to stop freaking out about my voice so much. The creepy thing is I've watched myself in the mirror when doing that and it completely creeps me out but you can see the mechanics of it all working as I use my male voice my voice box are very low in my throat and when I use my female voice the voice box goes almost all the way up to the top of my throat.

While working on my voice it was pretty tough to keep myself from going into the "danger zone" where you are pushing your voice way to hard for what it can do and end up getting it hurt in the process. Just like your voice therapist said our voices are a very important tool that can easily be damaged. So many singers careers have ended because they damaged their voice sadly.

Edit: This is what I sounded like before I caught a really nasty cold in September from a video clip I recorded on my phone while I walked outside. http://vocaroo.com/i/s09sPKOPuCqJ

You know what else is weird about lookin in the mirror, for me at least. If I look in the mirror while doing my voice I look more feminine somehow. I think my brain connects voice with appearance somewhere deep in my brain mechanics. It is odd.

Maybe it is just me 

Quote from: Seras on November 23, 2014, 09:42:37 AM
You know what else is weird about lookin in the mirror, for me at least. If I look in the mirror while doing my voice I look more feminine somehow. I think my brain connects voice with appearance somewhere deep in my brain mechanics. It is odd.

Maybe it is just me 

Same here! My male voice doesn't match my appearance at all and hearing the wrong voice with the right image is so off putting.

Totally - If I see me and then hear my relaxed voice, I fell quite odd. I immediately shift to a higher pitch to avoid that feeling - although I know i am not supposed to do that too much according to my voice therapist.

Anyways - even with that cold, your voice is totally feminine and that is what I meant. It is amazing since even the cold did not destroy that. For some, a cold totally ruins things because it is hard to have a cold and then still use your voice in a trained way. Cool that you can do this

I read a lot about the mechanics of the voice box moving up and down. I guess it is interesting if you can see that actually

Quote from: Megumi on November 22, 2014, 08:23:58 PM
Here's my voice, http://vocaroo.com/i/s01uDZuMY0XL

The best advice I can give is to use your female voice as much as you possibly can. When I first started out I could barely get my voice to be higher pitched than my normal male voice but every morning and afternoon going to & from work I used my female voice. I talked to myself, I sung along to the radio and about every two weeks I challenged myself to go outside of my new comfort zone and go a little higher with my voice then I'd drop back down a tiny bit to try to make this new level my new I can consistently use voice. This takes a LOT of time to accomplish and even after just over a year of working on my voice I still feel like I can safely keep pushing and pushing my voice higher and higher as I've basically allowed my voice to slowly but surely build up that strength & endurance over that time instead of pushing way too hard and doing damage.

When I came out at work my boss put me in touch with a voice therapist not knowing that I had been working on my voice. When I met her just to talk for a little bit she was blown away and the only tip she could offer was to keep doing exactly what I'm doing as it is working for me.

WHAT THE FUUUUUU***CKKKKKKK. HOW. WHEN. WHAT. Omggggg. I'm amazed. That's so crazy lol

Quote from: Julia-Madrid on November 12, 2014, 12:53:19 PM
  I'll never get totally rid of the slight South African edge to it...   

And you shouldn't. I LOVE the SA accent, I dated a South African girl once and even now when on the rare occasion I hear it in the wild, I stop what I'm doing and just listen. Recently I talked to a customer service lady from SA, I kept coming up with stuff to discuss just to keep her talking lol. 

Quote from: ImagineKate on November 17, 2014, 04:07:33 PM
So I have my initial consultation tomorrow with a speech pathologist. I'm pretty excited. Let's see what she'll say.

For you girls that have had one on one professional help, how did the initial consultation go?

In addition to feminizing my voice, I would like to get rid of my slight accent. But here's the rub - when I go visit my old country, for my safety it is crucial that my voice passes 100%. And I usually talk like a local without even thinking (because technically I am one.) So I may have to figure out something.

I just spent over 3 months in Trinidad, and your accent is VERY slight IMO. Trust me, I had phone calls with locals that I had to ask them to repeat themselves multiple times and nearly brought me to tears lol.

Quote from: ErinS on November 23, 2014, 11:47:50 PM
I just spent over 3 months in Trinidad, and your accent is VERY slight IMO. Trust me, I had phone calls with locals that I had to ask them to repeat themselves multiple times and nearly brought me to tears lol.

Thanks. I've lived in the states 15 years so that helps. Plus I too got fed up of people asking me to repeat myself. Only thing is my current US dialect is a little too "Jersey" for my liking lol... 

My dad on the other hand, he speaks in the native dialect and doesn't care to speak 'merican. He says people should understand him as he's speaking English after all.

Cant you just say that after 15 years in the US you sort of adopted the dialect there and unlearned your original dialect? As an explanation why you cannot yet do a female dialect version?

Quote from: Hanazono on November 24, 2014, 09:01:13 AM
I just discovered Scouse and English aren't mutually intelligible

Hah! If you don't know many people from Liverpool it may seem pretty impenetrable at first. Hell, even some other Scots have trouble with a thick Glaswegian accent.

Quote from: anjaq on November 24, 2014, 08:57:26 AM
Cant you just say that after 15 years in the US you sort of adopted the dialect there and unlearned your original dialect? As an explanation why you cannot yet do a female dialect version?

I don't think so. I can switch back pretty easily, almost without thinking. In fact if I see a person from trinidad and Tobago or the other islands I switch back automatically. Sometimes it helps put a smile on their face. I haven't really tried a Trinidad female version. I could try to sound like my mom or cousin, which isn't that hard in terms of prosody, but pitch I have a problem with.

But yeah I could use that as a fallback excuse.. gahhh I hate making excuses though.

Quote from: anjaq on November 24, 2014, 08:57:26 AM
Cant you just say that after 15 years in the US you sort of adopted the dialect there and unlearned your original dialect? As an explanation why you cannot yet do a female dialect version?

That's how I am. I'm bidialectal so after years in the US I speak the American version of RP but when I go home to Scotland my natural accent comes back very easily and quickly.

Quote from: Wynternight on November 24, 2014, 02:32:55 PM
That's how I am. I'm bidialectal so after years in the US I speak the American version of RP but when I go home to Scotland my natural accent comes back very easily and quickly.

Yes, you do it without thinking almost.