Voice cracking?

[Guest Hanayuki]

Hello everybody,

I have been working on my voice for almost 2 and a half years now (I'm MtF), and there is one thing that's driving me absolutely insane. The voice itself is quite okay I guess, but it keeps cracking! What I mean is that sometimes it feels like the voice is trying to "slip" back into a male register and there's a cracking sound like a burp kind of..

There are days where I barely have it at all.. But the past week, I've had it almost every day, and I feel so unsure and anxious about situations where I need to use my voice - which is every day..

What I did was I used the "Mickey Mouse" method where I brought my voice up to a very high squeaky falsetto, and then lowered it to a more or less normal female range... When my voice "cracks", it feels like something in my throat is falling back to the male larynx position..

Does anyone have ANY ideas on how to prevent that? Am I the only one who has that problem? I've been living full time for the past 2 years and I'm really tired of the weird looks I keep getting when it cracks T________T

Thank you very much in advance for your help, I'll appreciate any kind of advice / exercise, anything you can tell me...

[Guest Ney'ite]

One thing I did that seemed to get my voice completely away from any male range was on my 35- to 40-minute commute to work / home, I would sing in the car (alone - I am exCEEDingly shy) to songs that were far into the female range using the same technique you mentioned. (Sarah Brightman, Sarah McLaughlin, even Katy Perry - of course if you decide to give this a whirl, pick your own genré of music you like.) After a while, it tightened my vocal chords to the point that I could no longer go back into my old range, and if I did, it sounded really weird, almost like I had inhaled some helium from a balloon. Just be careful so as not to hurt your vocal chords. That may undo some of hard the work if you do.

I have no idea if this will work for you as everyone is different, but this is what I did and so far for the past year plus I always get "Ma'am" on the phone.

[Charlize]

Thanks Bette thats a great tip. I'll try it for sure.

Hugs, Charlie

[Guest LizMarie]

Many MTFs frown upon voice surgery. This negative attitude appears to largely stem from conclusions made by Dr. Anne Lawrence, who studied voice surgery results from the 1980s up through 2004, when she published her findings, which were highly negative (and justifiably so at that time). However, starting in 2004 and since that year, significant strides have been made in voice surgery, particularly for MTF transsexuals. I've studied this topic more than just a bit and Dr. James P. Thomas, who runs voicedoctor.net, appears to have some extremely high success rates. Additionally he has dozens of audio samples online for people to listen to. He has developed a surgical technique that did not even exist at the time Dr. Lawrence published her findings in 2004 and the technique appears to bring very positive results. His prices, last time I checked, would typically be in the $9000-$12000 range.

I've studied this topic extensively because even though I practice and have mild success with my voice, I am stuck with one paralyzed vocal cord that only works because of a plastic implant that vibrates in a narrow range (down in the middle male range). Since the vocal cord is paralyzed it can not be trained and I have to consider surgical intervention as an alternative to developing my female voice.

While I am not advocating surgery for your voice, if you wish to explore the option, you might like to visit voicedoctor.net and read about Dr. Thomas' procedures and the results from those procedures.

[Guest Risu]

Singing has helped me immensely with my voice. I can attest to Bette's method that singing will help.

Another problem I have though is when I sing too hard or too much. If your vocal chords are tired or over used then you need to give them as much time off as you can to rest. It takes time for the muscles to get used to holding things where you want them to be. I've been singing for 3 years now and my voice isn't perfect but it is much improved, and I'm so much more confident.

if you can have a quiet weekend alone try to give your voice the weekend off. Let it rest and then see if it works any better afterwards. The muscles will cooperate with you more if they're not strained and tired from constant use. It's a total pain I know but it does get easier to maintain your voice once you figure out what you need to do for you to keep it in tip top shape.

Good luck.

[Guest Hanayuki]

So first of all, thanks a lot for all your answers

Hmm.. It's not like I haven't tried singing while commuting to college either... But even when I sing, I sometimes get these cracks where it's like the larynx drops back to the male position...

I noticed that when I speak without thinking too much, my larynx moves a LOT and I think that's what's making my voice unstable..

Correct me if I'm wrong, but by doing pushing our Adam's apple towards the back of our throat, we're actually using the sternohyoid muscle to hold it in place, is that right? So I was thinking that maybe that muscle set is too weak and that I need to practice it..

So that's what I tried today, I tried speaking while putting more tension on the sternohyoid muscle..

And while I know that tension in your neck is in general bad, I think it might be necessary to have a stable voice here?

What do you think? And if I'm right, are there any exercises I can use to strengthen this muscle?

Again, thanks for your help