Hey, everyone, I've been having serious issues with improving my voice. I want to upload these videos for anyone to suggest anything that they might think would help me.

Uhm, I am sorry, but there is still much work to do.

It sounds very forced and Mickey Mouse-like, but there is progress!

Quote from: Sarah7 on July 11, 2011, 10:43:57 AMI generally speak at a median of 175 Hz (F3) which is technically in the androgynous range between men and women's voices, but my voice is always gendered female.

I find this information both relevant and intriguing. Thank you for sharing. I find 220hz (A3) comfortable, but it doesn't sound exactly the best. Certainly gives comfort that toning it down a bit (literally, har har) won't spook the clockers.

You sound absolutely terrified in that video.  You need to slow down your speaking and attempt to control your voice so it doesn't go up into the falsetto that it seems to be trapped in.  Remember that resonance is infinitely more important than pitch, which is something you clearly need to work on unfortunately.  Just out of curiosity, what voice program (if any) are you using to train yourself?

Quote from: EmilyElizabeth on July 28, 2011, 01:21:11 PM
You sound absolutely terrified in that video.  You need to slow down your speaking and attempt to control your voice so it doesn't go up into the falsetto that it seems to be trapped in.  Remember that resonance is infinitely more important than pitch, which is something you clearly need to work on unfortunately.  Just out of curiosity, what voice program (if any) are you using to train yourself?

I don't think I could have been any more relaxed in that video. Now, I'm scared to think what I'd sound like nervous. Ya, if you listen to my normal male range, I have a booming voice, and I've been working on voice for almost a year with no really movement forward. Do I practice for hours a day? No. But I have been working on it every chance I have, such as in the car, or by myself, at home.

I'm using CandiFLa's videos as guides, have watched every one, and re-watch them to practice along with. My voice is my albatross.

Well, it's actually a good thing that you don't practice for hours a day, because it can actually harm your voice to practice much more than an hour.  However, if you stick to consistently doing at least an hour of practice a day, you should certainly find some improvement. 

And I'm not familiar with those videos, so I can't give you any feedback there.  What I used was Andrea James's "Finding Your Female Voice" but I know that doesn't seem to work for everyone and, obviously, costs more than youtube videos.  I hope you can really keep at it, though!

Quote from: A_Dresden_Doll on July 10, 2011, 09:06:02 AM
Hey, everyone, I've been having serious issues with improving my voice. I want to upload these videos for anyone to suggest anything that they might think would help me.

I'm not an expert on describing these things but i have bad news and good news. the falsetto sounds very unnatural, sorry. You do it well in that you maintain the voice and don't seem to have "drop outs" but it just - almost no one actually speaks in that range.

the good news is that your natural "male" voice sounds to me to have GREAT potential for achieving a (relatively) low range female voice which does sound natural. Your natural voice isn't THAT far away and you are, IMO, working TOO hard on the other video.

Not all methods work with everyone. Some people have reported the "falsetto then going down" thing does not work at all for them, and they succeed with other means. Personally, the only things that have helped me were singing and imitating. Though my situation may be different since I've been working since my early adolescence to keep my voice from becoming awful, so I can't be "ashamed" of speaking in my most female voice on an everyday basis, since I've never had a distinctly male/low voice anyway. My relatively youthful face usually just makes people assume I'm younger than I actually am.

But the very best is supposedly to see a speech therapist. I wish I could see one. Even girls who have achieved a wonderful voice can't teach that well. As a comparison, even world-record 100-meter sprinters aren't necessarily good at coaching newer folks. They weren't trained to train; they were trained, period.

Quote from: A on July 29, 2011, 11:11:16 AM
Not all methods work with everyone. Some people have reported the "falsetto then going down" thing does not work at all for them, and they succeed with other means. Personally, the only things that have helped me were singing and imitating. Though my situation may be different since I've been working since my early adolescence to keep my voice from becoming awful, so I can't be "ashamed" of speaking in my most female voice on an everyday basis, since I've never had a distinctly male/low voice anyway. My relatively youthful face usually just makes people assume I'm younger than I actually am.

But the very best is supposedly to see a speech therapist. I wish I could see one. Even girls who have achieved a wonderful voice can't teach that well. As a comparison, even world-record 100-meter sprinters aren't necessarily good at coaching newer folks. They weren't trained to train; they were trained, period.

Shame is certainly a factor for me not using my female voice more. I don't want to sound fake or like I'm trying. Oddly, I thought I was making progress well when I was singing to Amanda Palmer-simply that she has a lower, more robust voice-but when I recorded myself keeping staying at the ranged I matched with her, I sounded like a gay male. The resonance was still there, despite the fact that I could not feel it in my chest.

I hope that voice therapy is not something I will HAVE to do. I can barely afford therapy sessions, and I haven't even begun to look into hair removal, simply for not having the funds.

A great irony of wanting to get rid of my male voice, is that I constantly get complimented on it all day long. I work in a call center, so my voice is the only thing the customer experiences of me. Everyone tells me I should be in radio. If I were actually a guy, I'd love my voice. Speaking of work, it is going to be vital to be able to use my female voice effectively and naturally. Someone who sounds good, in general, is going to make better sales when customers call in. So it goes.

I feel so uncomfortable talking in my falsetto that I just never improve and do not practice.

Actually it would be better to use your female voice when presenting female.  Recordings are a great way to practice.

I've tried to do voice with telemarketers on phone.  Sometimes they start coughing so that I must not have done too good.  Other times it works.  Other times it does not.  And once in a while it is someone I know and I am not out to them and I have to back pedal quickly. 

Someone told me singing in a female voice is easier than talking in a female voice.  I have very little upper range but it seems to be helpful.

Keep practicing and have fun.

The tips I could give would be, hmm...

Try looking into online counseling. There are a few ones who do Skype little sessions. Maybe it's cheap?

Get a "personal coach". If you could find a friend of yours who is understanding and wishes to help you, that person could help you a lot, even if they're not a professional.

Sing to Japanese female singers. But whoa. They have generally high voices, right? The challenge is just there: try to emulate their inflections, but whilst staying at a comfortable range for you. A good point to focus on for me was to analyze the point where their voices "break"/"switch" and how it sounds when it does (there's a special-ish vibration). That "break" alone can make heck of a difference. Once I've succeeded in imitating it, my singing voice became much better IMO.

Try to imitate people you hear speak. But it's a silly thing to do when there are people around, right? I personally did it a lot when watching anime. I've practiced "sonna koto nai shi", "shina nai de, Kurosaki-kun" and many more phrases many times around. Trying them over and over again, trying to sound credible as the character you are trying to imitate helps to grasp some "keys" to a better voice, I think.

Try to feminize a song you know that is sung by a guy. It's hard, but it also helps putting the finger on female elements.

Sing a lot in the shower. I don't know if it's the steam, but it helps me give my voice more range more easily.

Try to identify the point where your voice goes falsetto and do prolonged notes on that point precisely, trying to push it up slowly.

And also, don't overdo it! Whenever I push a whole lot in frustration for not being able to reach that one note, my voice's capabilities go down for a few days.

I hope I helped.

"NSLS"? De-acronym please.

Muffin once said something in a thread that has stuck with me.
Is the voice in your head female or male? If you sound male, chances are it is male in your head when you think. By changing the way your voice sounds when you think you can do allot to effect how your voice sounds when you actually speak.

Quote from: cynthialee on July 30, 2011, 01:50:24 PM
Muffin once said something in a thread that has stuck with me.
Is the voice in your head female or male? If you sound male, chances are it is male in your head when you think. By changing the way your voice sounds when you think you can do allot to effect how your voice sounds when you actually speak.

that's a fascinating thought - one I've never heard before. I'm not sure how that works but I'm going to give it some thought.

Quote from: Lisbeth on July 30, 2011, 01:24:31 PM
"NSLS"? De-acronym please.

Not Sound Like...

Hello there,

It may seem a very silly suggestion but... how about talking to people on voice online?

I have quite a few online friends (whom I do not know in real life) that I chat with on voice regularly, on Skype or otherwise. If you tell them or imply to them that you are female from the beginning, they won't suspect you're not even if you drop your voice by quite a bit, because the idea that you are female is already firmly implanted in their heads. It helped me immensely, especially since I chat a loooot with some of them!

Also, I tend to speak in a low voice because it takes less effort, and my low voice sounds more feminine than a high one, with a baseline pitch (the lowest pitch I drop down to, e.g. at the end of a falling intonation or a mumble) of around 160 Hz (E-flat 2 to E2). I tend to think it's better to actually work on sounding feminine in a low pitch rather than work on raising the pitch, but that's just my opinion!

I am posting this as an update to my last videos. Sorry for the necromancy, but I thought this would be a good edition to my past videos.

Sounds veeeeery nice!! A huge improvement over the voice in your original post!
I think you've pretty much nailed it, especially when you've found the voice with which you can't actually go too low.

Quote from: A_Dresden_Doll on December 09, 2011, 03:02:10 AM
Sorry for the necromancy,

*casts sunlight on your post*

That's a really huge improvement. Congrats!

As to critique. I think your high voice sounds a little strained for you - when your intonation pattern pushes you into the high notes you squeak a little. If you can compromise between that and your resting voice you may find that the head resonance comes more easily, then you can work on putting up the pitch again if you want. Your resting voice would actually work fine for pitch as a female voice, but you slip in to a little chest resonance which makes it much more androgynous/male-sounding. So ya, I think you should focus on getting that right resonance into your voice, and sacrifice pitch if you need to - resonance is more important after you reach a reasonable pitch.

Please note that those are suggestions for making your voice sound nicer. I doubt you'd have much trouble passing with it as it currently is.