Technically, I could make this into this into a "Does my singing voice pass now?" or "Is my singing voice improving?" topic or something like that, but I don't know if that's a good idea yet. I also initially posted this in the FTM group, but realized that also meant no one outside of that group could see it, which isn't entirely what I wanted. As for me, my singing voice passing is important, but I don't know how much others are interested in this.  I'm quite positive my singing voice does pass as male by this point. Feel free to object to that though if you feel differently though. ><
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I have heard horror stories of how people lose their ability to sing once their  voice changes due to HRT.
I don't feel this is the case with me; even though I've lost a lot of my range, I'm developing a different voice now and I kind of like it - it's still rough around the edges, but my voice isn't cracking while I am singing, a t least. To be honest, I'm not even sure if my voice has reached its lowest point and stabilized yet. It seems to get deeper about every other week. So I'm doing pretty alright for the moment.
Two weeks ago, my voice sounded different than it does now in my recordings - sure, it's noticeable, but the change didn't really leave me dumbfounded or anything. However, when I listened to some recordings I did near the end of the summer, I had to pause for a moment. I mean....I can't even pretend that it resembles how I sound right now much at all.
Seriously, if I didn't know any better, I would question whether or not "that voice" was actually mine at one point.
Perhaps I'm overreacting though due to lack of sleep....
     Before I ramble on for too long, I figured I'd see what people here think about the changes in my singing voice.

Also, if anyone has a story to share about your personal singing experience while on HRT, post away! I am interested to hear what other people have gone through and how different they may or not have been from me. :] Also, feel free to post your own attempts at singing or something. As our voices are adjusting, I think everyone on HRT can be a little "awkward", so this really shouldn't be a place to be ashamed of your changes if you wish to share them.

Here are two of my recordings. Expect folksy music by the way.

The first recording is from early September.

http://chirb.it/B69tJy

The second recording is from yesterday.
http://chirb.it/3POmf8

Wow, that's pretty cool. You sound female in the first recording and male in the second!
Although you sound male, it sounds like you're not completely used to your own voice yet or something.
What a difference a few months make though. Great job!

Yeah, I'm trying to find it. My range is totally different than what I used to be. It's really obvious in that I'm not as melodic as I used to be right now when you listen to my older recordings. Like I said, my voice still seems to be dropping, so I'm still adjusting to that until it finds a nice stable place. I'm a really melodic person when I sing and I can't do that now, because I'm really afraid I'll end up going drastically out of key. There's still a lot of limitations on my voice, but I'm kind of happy now that I know I'm capable of learning to sing even with the changes. I'm still in one of those awkward phases of transitioning, but I was still impressed with how different my voice sounded. ;p It's not apparent in that particular recording, but when I had a female range, I could shift to really high notes, much higher than I'm choosing to sing in that recording; I only sang that way because it's where I sounded best. Now I can't even hit most of lower notes in my female range unless I try really heard, but I don't want to strain my voice too much if I want it to continue to drop further into a male range, so I try not to. I'm sure there's a lot of people find the journey of "rediscovering your voice" a lot more frustrating than I have thus far.
  My god, I ramble too much. x_x

I'll share an MTF persective on this...

Of course, the MTF voice does not change on HRT and has to be changed by the user. When I changed my speaking voice, I simply raised my voice into falsetto, lowered it to a reasonable tone and started from there. To me, it was no more difficult than this to get started. Of course at first it was breathy and would sometimes 'drop' and speaking louder was a challenge - but this simply came with increased 'exercise' of using my voice in this register. I am not attempting to show how 'good' I am - I believe that anyone can do this - and even though my young age does help, I have seen older people able to master it well. To me it is far simpler than having session after session of voice therapy, although I imagine it can be an aid to use alongside self-practice.

Perhaps the reason for my perspective is my singing background. Pre-transition, I was classified by my singing teacher as a baritone (between tenor and bass singing voices, so certainly not a high male voice). I am now classified as a contralto/mezzo soprano (meaning I can sing in the lowest female range up to the medium high range, although not the highest soprano range). This came from being able to strengthen my upper falsetto range, which like most male voiced people at first, sounded breathy and weak (try singing a song from an average female singer, if you are mtf, and you will know what I mean). However, what I found to be a great benefit were the lessons learned from singing - that is, to develop head reasonance to strengthen the upper range. This sounds like vague 'singing-speak' so to put it in clearer terms, it means to focus the voice 'up' into the head (difficult to explain without showing it) but the best way to explain it is to pretend to impersonate an opera singer and the tone they use when singing. When you try this, with practice, you will 'feel' how the voice can resonate more clearly in a higher tone. It also comes from 'support', that is to support your voice with your diaphragm, and breath control, which means a controlled releasing of breath when you speak/sing. The way to actually do this I compare to almost holding your breath - in particular when you sing a long note (or you can try sounding a long note in speech) sound it whilst almost trying to hold as much breath in as possible - like holding your breath. Of course some breath will come out as you are using your voice, but if you try as much as you can to 'hold your breath', you will find that you have a much less breathy quality to your voice, and in the case of singing, be able to hold notes much longer.

I found that eventually I astonished myself with how loudly I could sing upper tones - which I had previously thought would be impossible. There are some limitations - my upper range will never be as strong sounding as my lower range (modal voice) although I have been told my lower range is particularly strong. However, I have made the most of this and realised that instead of trying to speak/sing like any other female, I would make the most of the uniquness of my voice to produce a sound which is androgynous - using a thick strong lower register with a purer upper register of voice.

I highly recommend singing for people interested in voice - I feel I have come a long way in 5 years in terms of voice and still have much room for further improvement (particularly in singing) looking forward. I hope that you will find that speaking and singing in a higher and/or more feminine register is entirely possible (I thought it would be impossible for me to realistically sing like a mezzo soprano without sounding like the bee gees).

Below are three songs I have sung using a variation of registers - I have made the most of the fact that my voice is different from other females, and hence I do not concentrate on making my voice sounding perfectly female, but instead sounding androgynous, as voices where you can't quite tell the sex of the singer have always fascinated me. It seems, however, that my voice 'passes' when singing, although it has masculine elements to me, which is fine, as some famous female singers have masculine sounding voices.

The final song 'Crucify My Love' probably sounds the most androgynous. (Deliberately so)







My inspiration for a deep feminine voice comes from Zarah Leander - Zarah Leander - Ave Maria (Finale)