So, most guides on MTF vocal training that I've seen and read say that the biggest change to make is to make sure that your voice is resonating from your head or upper-throat instead of your chest, and that you can tell the difference by placing your hand on your chest and feeling whether it vibrates when you speak. I'm a bit confused, because even though I have a pretty deep natural voice, I don't feel very much vibration or resonance from my chest. My natural voice seems to come from right above my collarbone, and my chest barely vibrates at all. In fact, I can't seem to get my chest to vibrate more than a tiny amount at all, no matter how low I go or how I contort my voice. It's always in my throat. Despite this, I don't think anyone would say my natural voice sounds feminine at all, it's usually described by others as a very deep "radio" voice. (I've gotten a lot of compliments on my voice over the years, I probably would kill it as a radio personality .)

Has anyone else experienced this? I'm having trouble getting a foothold in my vocal training because my baseline doesn't seem to match what anyone assumes that their audience is starting with. I don't seem to have much trouble moving my Adam's apple up when speaking, either, which is supposedly something that most people find difficult to do. I'm not sure if all this means I have the basics down already naturally and attaining a feminine vocal tone will be relatively easy, or if I'm not understanding what I'm actually supposed to be doing.

I'll probably post some clips at some point once I've practiced a little more and have time to get some decent reads, but right now I was just curious if there are any other men or MTFs out there who don't have much chest resonance.

Haha! Lucca, people have told me I should have done radio, too, with my deep voice!

Sometimes I get discouraged when my chest is vibrating but I think I am doing it correctly; based on my own observations, getting your voice to not vibrate in the chest is only a 'start' to training with resonance, but once you're closer or more comfortable, the chest can and does vibrate, anyway.

It's all about air flow control.  Voice training was especially hard for me at first, because prior to my transition I was what you would call a mouth breather, so my nasal cavities needed to 'wake up' and do some work for once in my life, cause a whole whole lot of snot, mucus, and phlegm. But that really only lasted about the first week.

More so than just training yourself to move your adams apple up, I find it more critical to also work the muscles that move it 'back' like I think when I was training it was similar to tightening my whole neck when I first did it, because you gotta understand most of these muscles exist but have never really been used- which is why people say not to push yourself too hard with voice training at the beginning.  (doing this also allows you to do the 'shelf' trick, but I have inconsistent results with achieving it most of the time)

I'm sure you're also aware that people describe feminine voices as 'sing-song' so, naturally, it helps to also sing, but you want to be careful with adjusting your natural range too much, at least at first. 

For me, I listened to a Youtuber called Jenna Moreci who vlogs stuff for writers(i'm also the writer for the game I'm working on) and I sing disney or other songs; I find that my voice has the most harmony with Anna from Frozen, and Anette Olzon from Nightwish.

Also, I would search on Youtube for daily singing exercises and do some of them, too.  I think that helps.  It really takes time, and practice. And if you need help with enunciation I would recommend googling tough twisters for singers(one page lists like dozens of really good ones that you can practice saying and also singing)


This sound clip is a bit old now, but this is what I posted in the "Does my voice pass?" sticky awhile ago:
https://soundcloud.com/user-455138761/a-dream-within-a-dream-by-edgar-allan-poe-both-genders

I would very much like to hear your recordings, and I hope that my advice might be of some use to you! 

Good luck, Lucca!

Thanks for the tips! I'll try to get a voice clip up soon.

What I'm confused about is that I seem to have barely any chest resonance at all, no matter what voice I do, even though I have a very deep natural voice. I'm really not sure why this is.

What's the "shelf" trick? I haven't heard of that.

This is the video I learned it from.

youtube.com/watch?v=L6ro2R3esHA


Basically, when your vocal chords are squeezed together they produce a more natural feminine sound, and when they're spread apart a more masculine sound.

The way your muscles in your neck are positioned, you can push your larynx (with you muscles and nothing else) what feels like it's resting behind a muscle, and this squeezes the vocal chords together.

I had always wondered why people say women don't have Adams apples and this is kinda why.

This read also explains these muscles in much greater detail:

http://lena.kiev.ua/voice/

Ok, here's a link to a clip I made.

https://soundcloud.com/lucca-connor/catan/s-P8DRo

I read a snippet from the Settlers of Catan rules that I had lying around three times. The first time is my natural voice, the second is with trying to keep my Adam's apple pushed up and back but without intentionally changing the pitch, and the third is the same as the second but with the pitch a bit higher.

It's not real great, but it's my first effort.

Lucca, this is really really good for a first effort! Really the main thing I think you have to work on is your smoothness, which can only come with practice and time(you do not go from lifting 20 pounds to 200 pounds overnight) so think within the same concept with the muscles in your neck.

I remember seeing people saying it takes months, and I totally believe that. I have only been working on my voice for a little under 2 months, and I still require lots of improvement.

Listening to yourself, finding the range you're at and working on the range you want daily, will also greatly help, I believe. And since you have the soundcloud, I'm sure you are actually listening to yourself.

The real tricky thing, I find, is that sometimes it sounds really really good in our heads, but when you listen to yourself it sounds slightly different; but when it comes to voice, that's the one you really want to recognize, improve, and understand inside-n-out. 

One thing(and this might not apply to everyone, but it certainly applies to me) it takes a lot of energy to do this, surprisingly more than you'd expect. So sometimes, I just can't even achieve the right sound, even though I'm perfectly capable of it.

I'll give you a really simply exercise to demonstrate the distance.

1. Audibly exhale "hoh" and sustain it, as if you're trying to fog up a window in cold weather
This is the equivalent of chest voice.

2. Audibly exhale "haaaa" and sustain it, as if you're imitating a snake hissing at someone. Don't make the "s" sound, and don't do anything different with your tongue.
This is the equivalent of head voice.

Head voice is just a more open larynx. This is what you want. It's called head because, instead of all the resonance being trapped below, it's opening up into the resonators throughout your head.