The importance of pitch

[Guest LizMarie]

Pitch appears to be the single most important component in gender voice identification for MTF transsexuals.

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/15532739.2011.664464

The results indicated that an average SFo above 180 Hz and maintaining a speaking pitch range of approximately 140 to 300 Hz appear to be the most powerful acoustic features or markers in the perception of a female voice in a biological male (M. L. Brown & Rounsley, 1996). An SFo of approximately 170 Hz appears to be the lower limit that would result in a biological male being perceived as having a female voice by most listeners. A slight elevation in the second (F2) and third (F3) formants was noted but does not appear to have a significant influence in the perception of a female voice in biological males. Female voices appear to be perceived as male by most listeners if average SFo is at or below 165 Hz, the low SFo is below 130 Hz, and a low F3 is exhibited. No evidence was found that jitter (frequency perturbation) and shimmer (amplitude perturbation) affect the perception of a female or male voice in a biological male. The results support previous research that elevated pitch is the strongest acoustic marker in the perception of a female voice in biological males.

Interesting, especially in light of the Yeson Voice Center's focus on pitch altering surgery.

[Guest Kayla86]

That's very interesting. Voice is something I've definitely struggled with, but I'd like to get it down without having to have surgery for sure!

[Guest Melissa~]

Yeson's center is a place to keep an eye on. I could finally see that surgery become more widely adopted and even normalized in a reasonable time frame, it's like the first voice surgery I have seen that scare the bejeebers out of me...and seems successful.

[Guest LizMarie]

Yeson is a non-invasive endoscopic procedure and it's reversible. Every other procedure I've researched (and I've researched plenty because of this paralyzed vocal cord) has been invasive (meaning opening the throat surgically) and all do far more changes than Yeson.

[Drea]

My experience and observation, of several parameters, focusing on pitch will result in poor results.

Certainly if all other things were equal pitch may be decisive.

Those who have been very successful with their voice have largely focused on resonance. Resonance changes the tonal quality quite significantly and has more effect that pitch.

I can see however how a study about pitch would show an indication that pitch has an effect. Of course it does, but pitch alone just doesn't do it.

I also doesn't surprise me that surgeons that do voice surgery would support the idea of pitch since that is what the surgery does. It changes pitch.

[Guest]

How does one identify what HZ there voice is, to know how far out of range they are?

[Guest Melissa~]

There is an iPhone app I use for sampling sounds. I haven't searched out the highest pitched singers but for example on star trek season 2 soprano opening hits 950 hz, I top out at 440hz there is a lot of ground in there.

[Guest Astrosmurf]

The Yeson thing looks amazing. Does anyone know how much it costs?

[Guest]

There is an iPhone app I use for sampling sounds. I haven't searched out the highest pitched singers but for example on star trek season 2 soprano opening hits 950 hz, I top out at 440hz there is a lot of ground in there.

Bummer, my phone doesn't do apps. Any resources for PC might work, let me search around I guess. Thanks though. Hug. JodyAnn

[Guest LizMarie]

The Yeson voice surgery is approximately $7500. You will of course have other expenses aside from the medical expenses (travel, food, lodging). Several transwomen who have gone there have recorded totals ranging from roughly $10,000 to $12,500 when all expenses are included.

One popular PC and Mac application for analyzing voice is Praat. You can search for that online via Google to find the download location. Just search for "Praat download Windows" or "Praat download Mac" for the platform you are using.

There are many other voice analysis programs as well.

[Guest Astrosmurf]

Cheers Liz Marie, probably cheaper to fly from New Zealand but way beyond my budget. Pretty amazing proceedure though and I wonder what they might discover or invent next that could be helpful for transitioning.

Hey Jodie Ann, there's also a link to download a free spectogram voice analyser thing onn the genderlife website in the voice tutor section. I downloaded that on my PC but no idea how that thing works so i gave up in the end!

[Guest Lizzie McTrucker]

Hey Jodie Ann, there's also a link to download a free spectogram voice analyser thing onn the genderlife website in the voice tutor section. I downloaded that on my PC but no idea how that thing works so i gave up in the end!

So did I.

But yesterday I downloaded Praat and after doing a quick recording I pushed one of the buttons that I thought would do a voice analysis thing and it came up with a graph with Hz so I was able to look at the highs and lows and whatnot just from doing a simple "Hello! This is my voice" sample recording of how I normally talk. My lows in just that simple sentence were down into the male range but the highs and midrange were in the normal female range, so that's a starting point I think to just be mindful to not let my voice drop too low when talking.

[Guest LizMarie]

Praat can be daunting because it does so much and be confusing because of that. I can supply a link to a tutorial to use Praat but it's not a link that I'd want to post on the open forums. Please PM me if you would like it.

[Guest Astrosmurf]

cool, I just downloaded Praat and will give it a go tomorrow

[Guest LizMarie]

As a followup, here is something that was posted elsewhere by another trans woman. I've edited out identifying details and provided my own copy of the diagram so as to erase tracing the image via URL. The woman in question is a professional singer, has had extensive voice training, has worked extensively with voice therapists, and both passes as a woman speaking and singing. Her other explanations of voice mechanics have been brilliant and insightful. I credit her with much of my understanding of MTF voice development.

Dear XXXX,

congratulations on the development of your voice. It sounds great indeed. And thanks for the thumbs-up for my (and YYYYYY's) surgery in ZZZZZZ! <3 <3 <3

And your attempt at doing a low voice really supports my conjecture that resonance modification becomes less and less important if the pitch problem is taken care of, as male resonance becomes unmaintainable at higher pitches anyway. Thus it is unnecessary to modify resonance as long as the vibrating weight and/or length of the vocal folds is decreased. Apart from the consistency of their great results, this is the main reason for me to favor Yeson's procedure over any other.

Since it's incredibly hard and abstract to describe my voice in words, I've prepared a little diagram that's supposed to show how my voice feels to me (with 2 decades of resonance modification under my belt, but – as of yet – without VFS). This also explains how the region of male resonance becomes increasingly hard to access as the surgery modifies the vocal cords in such a way that they cannot vibrate at high volume at lower pitches anymore.



You can see that without resonance feminization, the male resonance area and falsetto pretty much exist independently of each other, with significant discrepancies in sound quality. Going from one to the other causes a noticeable break.

With resonance feminized, what used to be the falsetto becomes the new speaking voice, but is extended downward and through resonance modification is given greater power and clarity and less breathiness, and so comes closer to the old male register, which is unused altogether. Volume and clarity are hard to maintain at pitches around where the break used to be (my voice sound quality noticeably suffers in that pitch region). The top minor 6th of the range, however, is crystal clear with lots of volume and control.

The pitch boundaries I highlighted reflect my personal voice. They could be different for other people.

I hope this makes sense to you, as it is quite an abstract visualization. And I'm so curious to find out how this diagram will change after surgery!

The Yeson voice surgery is producing stunning voices! If anyone is interested, I can provide links to locations where samples can be heard to do your own evaluations.

NOTE: The "attempt at male resonance" spoken of above, is another woman, post-op from Yeson, trying to do her old male voice, which is available in other clips as well. She fails, spectacularly and sounds just like a woman trying to emulate a man. The results of this surgery are startling if you have already mastered male resonance as an issue.

[Guest CassieX]

This is a very interesting thread. I've been working with speech therapists at my local university for the past year and am about to go back this year for a 4th semester. I think that the Yeson voice center might be a viable option for me if I don't get where I want to be in the near future though I'm not giving up hope just yet.. When I started the course in Feb 2013 my average SFo was measured at 135 Hz. At the end of 2013 year my average SFo was measured at 182 Hz but I think I can do better this year as my voice is not where I want it to be just yet.

Pitch is very much a key factor in sounding female but its how you speak that is the clincher. The Walk Jump Step Fall model is one of the main tools I use in developing a female voice as it is one of the big differences in how men and woman speak.

LizMarie, I'm definitely going to check into the Praat program. One of my main hurdles practicing at home is having a decent voice measurement program and this has made it difficult to gauge my progress outside of the voice lab. There I use Visipitch which a wish I could afford as it is an awesome tool.

Cassie