Feminizing Your Voice

[Guest Kukaku]

So I'm coming to the end of my first month with my gender therapist, and I've come to the point where I wanted to start practicing my female voice. I noticed there wasn't much of a thread about feminizing your voice, so I thought I would start one. I figure this would be a great way for people to come in here to not only learn, but also share their techniques with everyone else. I know everyone has their own techniques, and what may work for some people, won't work for others. The following is what's working for me so far.

I know there's some sites that can train you in this, and there's even some where you have to pay. I'm really stingy with my money, so I've tried to learn as much from the free sites. I found that even though some were informative, they weren't really helping with my actual pitch, but more with my mannerisms. So I took as much as I could from the sites and then applied it to my own practices.

This is what I've learn / practicing so far. First off, I make sure I have some kind of recorder. I was practicing without one for the longest time and thought I was doing good. Until I heard myself and realized how awful I sounded, which actually discourage me. But being the stubborn person that I am, I still continue. Another technique I use, is placing my hand on my Adam's apple and try to find the highest part of my neck to get that female sound, without sounding squeaky. After that I repeat a word, or phrase, over and over again. I do that in order to find the pitch and practicing keeping my Adam's apple in that position once I do find it. I was actually amazed that once I find that sweet spot, that my voice sounds very feminine. Even through the recorder. Problem is, whenever I try saying something else, I lose that sweet spot. It'll probably take a lot of practice in order to keep that in position. But I know if I ever need to, I can go back to that female voice repeating the one word or phrase over and over again. The trick is to finding that sweet spot, and practice keeping it in that position. Another thing I noticed, and this is a little harder to explain, but whenever I'm in that sweet spot in order for it to sound really feminine I need to push more air through. Because even though if my Adam's apple is in the right position, if the amount of air going through isn't exact, it won't sound as sweet. This is probably the most confusing explanation, but once you try it for yourself, I think you'll know what I mean.

Well those are my practices, hope that helps anyone out there. If anyone would like to add to this, or share their own ideas, please feel free. I'm just an amateur sharing my own techniques, so I'm sure there's flaws in this.

[Guest Mia J]

I have moved this thread to the voice forums where it may get more attention.

There are several places out there that can help you and yes, you will have to pay to get any real coaching.

Have you looked at the places listed in the main site?

http://www.lauras-playground.com/voice_link.htm

Most are fairly inexpensive for the CDs. And some provide a good amount of information for free.

Having a device to record your voice is a must.

Another device to get is a frequency tuner to monitor you pitch.

These can run around $25 and up but you can also download free computer programs from various sites.

Mia

[Guest Waverly]

Hi Kukaku,

Getting the voice "right" takes a lot of determination and practice. For someone just starting out, a voice spectrometer program is almost a necessity. The best and easiest to use program that I have found is totally free and comes from SIL International; The program is Speech Analyzer 3.0.1. You can do a Google search to find the proper download for your computer. The basics of this program will allow you to see both your pitch (hz) and waveform (breathiness). With the proper monitoring, your voice should be up to your expectations in a short amount of time.

Good Luck !! ...

Waverly

[Guest Feurmata]

I've gotten quite lazy with my voice because everyone I trust to tell me the truth tell me its fine for a female voice, even though I feel like the pitch is a little lower than I'd like it to be most days. Luckily, female mannerisms and vocal inflection is something I never suppressed before coming out, as I used to constantly get pegged as a gay guy by people that only knew me by my voice.