Feminizing The Voice /the Norma Garbo Technique

[Guest Alice4016]

We were kicking around ordering this, but it's $110. In college thats quite a bit of money, but if it's a good product it's worth the cash. Just wondering if anybody has used/heard of this program?

Peace, love, and health,

Alice

[Guest Leah1026]

My advice is don't spend the money...... yet. Many of us were able to develope decent new voices without speech therapy, classes or anything. So my advice would be to try practicing on your own for a good 6 months before putting out for a class. If you have to spend money get a voice DVD, either the one by Andrea James and Deep Stealth Productions (Developing Your Female Voice) OR the one by Melanie Phillips. Those both teach you the mechanic of voice and excercises to get you where you need to go. BUT the do NOT teach you about the psychological hurdles you'll encounter on the way. Not to fear, a couple years ago I wrote up my own experience on another forum and saved it for posterity.

Hi all,

I thought it was about time that someone brought up the subject of psychological barriers to obtaining a female voice. People have already beat to death the mechanics of voice, but rarely discuss the mental aspects. I think these mental barriers are mainly responsible for people giving up on their voice. Some may be asking why I placed this thread here and not on the open board. Because I didn't want some anonymous posters derailing the thread and besides anyone who's serious about developing a female voice will have joined the forum already.

The first barrier occurs at the beginning: To try or not to try. Due to fear, pride or other reason some people never even make an effort at all.

Next up is "What if someone hears me?". Everyone has time alone to work on voice. Talk to yourself in the shower or in the car coming to and from work.

Next hurdle is testing your voice on someone else. You can submit voice sample to sites on the internet. Not being a techie I just started testing my voice on unsuspecting family members. I'll never forget calling my sister early on and fooling her with my new voice. She said "You little Sh*t!" after I told her it was me. This told me I was on the right track. Voice is about taking chances. You have to take chances if you're going to get anywhere.

The next BIG hurdle is your public debut. This is when you go out and about as yourself and use your voice for the first time. Stage fright threw me for a loop at first. My throat would close up and I could only manage a whisper. I just kept at it and eventually got past this. I knew my voice in private was okay, I just had to get over my shyness. This was not easy and took months.

Oh my goodness? This hurdle came out of nowhere twice. First, early on I was completely caught off guard how my personality seemed to change when I used my new voice. Of course that didn't happen, but my new voice was definitely more expressive and this led me to be even more open with people. Don't be afraid of how you sound! This is the real you finally being expressed, go with it!

Oh my goodness?-part 2 After having done lots of private practice and after I was starting to get over my stage fright I had another Oh my goodness moment. At first it stopped me in my tracks. This time my voice seemed to sound different than it did in private practice. Once again the answer was to persist and overcome. The term I use for this is to take "ownership" of your new voice. Your new voice is YOU. Your voice is a conduit for not only your thoughts, but emotions and your state of mind. Let yourself go, stop monitoring yourself! Your old voice is the enemy. Again it took me a period of months to fully integrate this lesson.

Don't give up! I told myself at the beginning that failure was not an option. Sometimes I took a break, but I never gave up.

Tape Recorder Fiasco-A tape recorder may work for a lot of people but it almost halted my journey. I was devastated how bad I sounded when I played the tape back. I took a break and went out to a movie. After thinking about it for a bit I never used the tape player again (It eventually got sent to another BL member). After that I went strictly by ear (80%) and feedback from others (20%). If the tape player doesn't work for you, don't be afraid to try something else. There's more than one way to skin a cat.

1. Be patient

2. Be persistent

3. Appreciate how much work voice is psychologically. Mechanics is only a small part of the total project.

4. Practice, practice, practice and then practice some more.

5. Take ownership of your new voice.

6. Never give up.

I hope this helps somebody out there dealing with their own hurdles

Hope this helps!

[Guest Alice4016]

Leah,

Thanks for that, it was an encouraging read. I think my biggest problem is getting over the self-conscious feelings I have when I practice. I'm always worried someone will hear me before I have it down. My wife is really the only person that I really feel like working with at the moment (another reason I was a little nervous of voice lessons, I'm not to sure about working with a stranger I don't know). Again thanks for the advice, I'm sure it will help!

Peace, love, and health,

Alice

[Guest Sheila]

hi,

i was wondering, how do you practice? what are the excerises? is there a medical procedure to give me a more feminine voice? this is all new to me but would like to start practicing. one more question. do you need to bo on female hormone replacement therapy before your voice starts to change?

sheila

[Guest Alice4016]

Sheila,

Well, as far as exercises I try to sing all I can (Jefferson Airplane, Dispatch, Tom Petty, The Beatles, Byrds, etc...I don't always use female singers as you can see ). That kind of warms me up, then I just try speaking, using a tape recorder or my wife as a judge. Don't try too long though, once I went for about three hours and my voice started to get pretty sore (didn't make for a great show the next night either...try singing White Rabbit with a horse voice ). So take it in baby steps. If you Google "How to Fem. The Male Voice" you'll find quite a few good resources. As far as hormones, my doctor has told me that my voice is all my work and that hormones don't help us MTFs like the do the FTMs...so practice is really the only way I see it happening. Keep working on it though, oh and I like to try calling people (like infomercials, etc.) and see how they react; see if I get Mrs or Mr. It's actually a great way to judge b/c I've found if you can pass on the phone you can usually pass in public.

Good luck with your voice, I hope this helps even if just a little.

Peace, love, and health,

Alice

[Guest Leah1026]

hi,

i was wondering, how do you practice? what are the excerises? is there a medical procedure to give me a more feminine voice? this is all new to me but would like to start practicing. one more question. do you need to bo on female hormone replacement therapy before your voice starts to change?

Well I'm not one to model. I tried the Andrea James program and gave up in the first week. I just started practicing a bit here and a bit there, you know like talking to myself while doing a task. I am also lucky in that I work the night shift and could do the same there because I work alone in my department. The toughest thing at first was getting used to how I sounded and finding "my groove", the pitch I liked. Then it was just practice, practice, practice and then more practice. However, I want to stress that at first I wouldn't practice more than a couple minutes. Why? Because you'll start to feel the strain after a few minutes. This is stress on the voice box as well on the throat muscles. You're basically retraining your voice box and muscles to speak in a totally new way. So go light on the practice at first and then gradually ramp up. By the time I went full-time I was using my new voice everywhere except work. Well that's not totally true. Sometimes I did demonstrate my new voice for co-workers! It can also be fun at that point to freak them out by switching back and forth mid-sentence. A couple other points for after you've practiced a while: You will find "the groove" and talking in your new voice will get progressively easier and easier. But it is still important to relax and to be yourself and for heavens sake EMOTE! You no longer have to carefully measure and monitor how you speak! Drop that male facade and BE YOU! It can be scary at first to let yourself go, but your MUST. Emoting is a VERY important part of female speech. You might be surprised at how easy it is once you just let go. I talked about that above in another post when I thought my personality was changing. It wasn't changing, it was just finally being unleashed!

Hormones do NOTHING for MtF voices. We must make a superhuman effort to make it happen. A good attitude is a must. I kept telling myself:

1. I had always hated my old male voice, that I was happy to change.

2. Failure was NOT an option, I would succeed.

Voice Surgery: Voice surgery is quite experimental and NOT recommended. Success rates are very low and people usually get no change or sometimes end up making their voice WORSE. I am convinced that EVERYBODY can develope a decent female voice with practice, attitude and persistence. And besides surgery is not a cure-all. Even IF it is successful you still have to do a ton of voice therapy because a Strativarius violin will sound horrible if not played correctly!

Your voice is an instrument, you're just learning to play a different style now. Or as I've heard some people say you're learning a new accent (female).

Hope this helps.

[Guest VLee]

Well, as far as exercises I try to sing all I can (Jefferson Airplane, Dispatch, Tom Petty, The Beatles, Byrds, etc...I don't always use female singers as you can see ). That kind of warms me up, then I just try speaking, using a tape recorder or my wife as a judge. Don't try too long though, once I went for about three hours and my voice started to get pretty sore (didn't make for a great show the next night either...try singing White Rabbit with a horse voice ).

Can singing to higher songs really help? I ask because I already sing along to some higher songs like Evanescences "Bring me to Life", Celtic Womans "Send me a Song" and Didos "White Flag".

[Guest Kelly]

i have a really good ear/voice when it comes to singing...

so i started practising getting my soprano voice back

well i did now i can sing bass-soprano and i have also managed to do voices now its the mental part

sometimes i fond that if i have no one to talk to i cant use my new voice but if im talking to someone i can and after i start i can keep on going...

i cant use it 100% of the time right now though because my counselor at school said she would enroll me as female next year but would not allow me to act female till then and my step mom doesnt know yet but she will find out when i get on HRT

[Guest Sheila]

thanks for the great advice girls. this is an important part of being a girl. i thought a would have to learn sign language. but i have large hands and that wouldn't be a fesible option either. i've been practicing but my voice sounds so not natural. i like the idea of singing along with female vocalist and will be adding that to my to do list. i live with my sister and her family and the best time for me is when everybody is sleeping. i will be investing in a tape recorder.

sheila

[Guest JoAnnDallas]

There are some voice analize programs that you can download for FREE. One of these is a program that will help you train your voice to be fem. It is used by a couple of the college Gender Research groups here in Dallas. This one program has a display that moves a line and changes color when you spoken voice enters the fem range, tone, and enflection. These research groups work with TS people to help them develope a fem voice. They came to HEF2006 and gave a seminar. They said one key way to determine if your voice is truly fem, is if someone on the other end of a phone call can not tell your not a female by your voice. They said you may sound like a perfect female in public but on the phone it can still come over as a male voice. Also laughing is hard to do while developing a fem voice. They also said it takes their average TS 6-12 months to develpe a fem voice to the point that it becomes their natural voice, but with practice anyone can develope a fem voice.

[Guest amie]

We were kicking around ordering this, but it's $110. In college thats quite a bit of money, but if it's a good product it's worth the cash. Just wondering if anybody has used/heard of this program?

Peace, love, and health,

Alice

I've never had much of a problem with the voice, fortunately-but I wanted to make certain I was convincing in my expression and the dynamics of which. I haven't done this for quite a while-but I used to call places like woman's clothing stores, hair salons, woman's fitness clubs, etc. To test myself and have only been questioned a couple of times. This is when I tried to get too high an octave and maybe a lil’ too bubbly, I think. LOL. Anyhoo, this will give yu an opportunity to gain a little confidence on your girly voice and the way you carry notes. Weather in your personality or no, use some common chic/girlygirl terminology and expressive note just for practice. Granted, this is only a telephone voice, but should getcha stated well in terms of your approach to speaking to someone.

[Guest amie]

We were kicking around ordering this, but it's $110. In college thats quite a bit of money, but if it's a good product it's worth the cash. Just wondering if anybody has used/heard of this program?

Peace, love, and health,

Alice

Ah, I almost forgot to mention that another great way to practice your voice is to read aloud to yourself. Granted, you don't get an objective grade of any kind from this but you rilly begin to feel it in yourself. It works.

[Guest amie]

We were kicking around ordering this, but it's $110. In college thats quite a bit of money, but if it's a good product it's worth the cash. Just wondering if anybody has used/heard of this program?

Peace, love, and health,

Alice

[/quote

Hey, one more thing, Alice: Go Bucks! LOL. I just noticed your from Athens. Nice.

[Guest Alice4016]

That sounds like a great idea to call people, I will do that today actually ! I have to drive back to Ohio from Fl so I've got a lot of time to make phone calls lol. I've been singing quite a bit, which I finds helps. Bob Dylan is actually really good to work with, because if you capo up to the 4th, or 7th fret on the guitar and try to match those pitches it's pretty easy. Dylan sings mostly in a monotone so you can focus on your resonance/pitch etc, then you can start to spice it up with your own style/fluctuation's.

-Alice