Does Achieving A Totally Passable Female Voice Really Only Boil Down To Training And Strengthening Your "voice Muscles"

[Guest Hanayuki]

Hey everybody,

I've been reading a lot about MtF voice therapy lately again, because I don't like doing exercises like the ones Stealth Productions, Finding your female voice is making me do, without really knowing why I'm doing them.

So, I've come across two channels on youtube that are really giving awesome complementary information =)

The first one is "Shevoice" and the second one is "evevoices". According to shevoice, achieving a female voice only boils down to working out the geniohyoid muscles in your chin, especially the genio glossus muscle, and that that will give your female voice a certain "fluffiness" and get you to a perfect female voice =)

(See this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eSGcG-Q3fAc)

Also, evevoices says you have to practice what she calls "upper breathing", that is to say breathing while constricting your throat. =)

If I get this correctly, she is basically saying that learning to "upper breathe" will get you to your female voice too, and make you sound totally natural, when you speak, sing, cough, giggle, snezze, and so on... (She talks about upper breathing around the middle of this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rgiDWXlGcJc)

So, I was just wondering what you people are thinking about that theory, because I think that really makes sense =)

And by the way, maybe these videos will help somebody on their way =)

Here are the channels: http://www.youtube.com/shevoice

http://www.youtube.com/evevoices

Okay, that's all,

Byes

[Guest Hanayuki]

Edit: Seems I posted the links wrong o.O

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rgiDWXlGcJc

Hope it works this time

[Guest nymphblossom]

I have seen both of these girl's vlogs and they have alot or merrit. But it sound simpler than it is to say it is only a matter of developing the geniohyoid muscles. Depending on how long it has been since you went through male puberty, they have extremely atrophied, in my case nearly 40 years. The DS and Melanie Speaks exercises work extremely well to help develop these muscles. The key is to force yourself to make a wide range of sounds, something that is very hard to make yourself without structured exercises like these.

And remember, pitch and resonance are only a small component of the whole female vocal presentation. Women who have husky guy range voices would never be taken as sounding manly because of their distinctively feminine inflection, intonation, diction, vocabulary and speech flow.

There is no instant easy answer. It takes practice, practice and more practice. I spent an hour a day for over 5 months doing the DS exercises and switched to singing for the last 3. Well over 250 hours and I barely pass in public and only occasionally on the phone. Here is a link to one of my audio files: http://members.cox.net/nymphblossom/092509.wav

Blossom

[Guest Hanayuki]

I have seen both of these girl's vlogs and they have alot or merrit. But it sound simpler than it is to say it is only a matter of developing the geniohyoid muscles. Depending on how long it has been since you went through male puberty, they have extremely atrophied, in my case nearly 40 years. The DS and Melanie Speaks exercises work extremely well to help develop these muscles. The key is to force yourself to make a wide range of sounds, something that is very hard to make yourself without structured exercises like these.

And remember, pitch and resonance are only a small component of the whole female vocal presentation. Women who have husky guy range voices would never be taken as sounding manly because of their distinctively feminine inflection, intonation, diction, vocabulary and speech flow.

There is no instant easy answer. It takes practice, practice and more practice. I spent an hour a day for over 5 months doing the DS exercises and switched to singing for the last 3. Well over 250 hours and I barely pass in public and only occasionally on the phone. Here is a link to one of my audio files: http://members.cox.net/nymphblossom/092509.wav

Blossom

For me, it's been 3 or 4 years or so since my voice broke so I think they're quite atrophied... I read something about fat building up if you don't use these muscles too

I spend between 3 and 8 hours a day, depending on how much time I get =)

Well, I do start getting a little hoarse after 4-5 hours, but I used to be able to only speak for a few minutes so I guess I am making progress... Even if I barely notice any progress at all when I listen back to the recordings...

I guess my voice is weird.. It's totally androgynous, but at least it's been leaning a little towards female lately... Still, I guess I'll spend many more hours of work.

I had stopped doing the DS exercises altogether because I felt like it was useless. I did them for nearly a year before I realized I had been doing it wrong all along *sigh*

Now I just started doing the resonance exercises, especially chanting the mantra part. Weirdly enough, I have the feminine inflection and intonation part down, but I still need to work on speech flow

I still think that resonance is the most important part. I just want to get a... well clearer and softer sound at the same time...

The cool thing about the breathing exercises is that you can do them pretty much anywhere.. In the car, in the bus, during school, at home when watching TV. After all, it's just breathing so no one notices. But it does put a strain on these muscles, so I think it's a good exercise you can do whenever you feel like it =)

[Guest nymphblossom]

You have been working hard!

I think the directions are the biggest problem with the DS exercises and was doing them wrong too for quite a while. Of course, if I hadn't of been so cheap and actually bought the DVD...

If you are having problems with resonance, I might suggest you try to learn how to sing in head voice. That will help you develop the sound quality that is basic to the female voice.

Blossom

[Guest erikka2046]

Hi Hanayuki,

I worked many hours like you, I use Melanie Speaks, Stealth and Exceptional Voice. I practice those exercises a few hours, then practice singing for a hour or two six days a week and a day to rest my voice.

I think Melanie gives me the basic ideas of how the female voice works. Stealth and Exceptional Voice have some constructive exercises to work with, and they each cover some different aspect which help a lot when use them together. Singing help me a lot too, usually I start from a lower note up to a female high note. Singing is a good way to practice the control of breathing and air flow in order to acheive the female resonance, since female has lots of voice come from head.

If I have to speak in my male mode, I try to keep tthe same high pitch but use the male resonance. Other time I try to use my female voice as much as possible but the male resonance still slip in form time to time. It really takes a long time to get things right, going back and forth to those exercises, watching vlogs of other people.

Erikka