Can't find it in myself to use new voice

[Guest Merc]

So for months I had been working with my voice(and with Audacity, wonders are performed!), but now there is another person living in the house. So that makes three. I can't train voice in front of anyone(it's just too embarrassing), and I can't seem to go anywhere alone without this person wanting to join me. Haven't done any voice training for a while since a month. They're both as accepting as they possibly can, but I can't help but feeling they are attached to someone else inside me. Two days ago I decided to stop fiddling around and decided to put on female clothes. So I started trying to pass, two days ago. I thought I could automatically use the voice I've been training with. The one that sounds decent. Did I ever thought wrong.

It just hasn't happened. For two days now, I've been setting my voice in the position where I can use it en femme mode in the event I need to say something. But the very instant I have to reply to someone, it has reverted. I almost can't control it. I just finished a spurt of depression, so I decided to go at it. Why can't I use the voice I want to use? Am I afraid of them? I feel like I can't communicate because this male voice doesn't fit me.

[Guest]

Well, what if you sat down at the kitchen table, enjoyed a relaxing cup of coffee or something and read the local news paper out loud, in your en fem vioce? Reading anything out loud en fem helps my voice. The more comfortable and distracted I am, the more my voice just flows. Who knows? Hug. Jody

[Guest Merc]

We're all pretty quiet people. Maybe I could adapt that to a car ride through the boonies or something.. Just talk to the radio

[Guest Velanna]

Yeah! Talking to inanimate objects also helps! That's what I do when I'm practicing my voice! lol Best of luck to ya! I know it's hard to find your inner female voice.

[Guest]

We're all pretty quiet people. Maybe I could adapt that to a car ride through the boonies or something.. Just talk to the radio

I must be misunderstanding you somehow. I think you want to use your new enfem voice to everyone?

I practiced and practiced but could not bring her out in conversation. I practiced reading "How it works" that is read at the beginning of all AA meetings. I practiced at home several times reading out loud. In a week of so, my chance came, I was asked to read the nearly two pages of print. I started out in my male voice. "Hi, I'm Jody and this is how it works." I started reading en fem and the whole room of over thirty people were blown away! They thought is was someone else. All eyes snapped to me. I held steady en fem because I had something to concentate on. After that reading I have never had a problem letting me speak openly. If you are reading around them out loud in your en fem voice, your mind may find the same peace too. Good luck, you can do it! JodyAnn

[Guest rowyn]

Try singing to songs you like by female artists. It really helps.

[Guest Velanna]

Here's a tip I have, well more of what you should do, rather. When speaking using your female voice you should feel most of the vibration in your throat rather than in your chest. If you put a hand on your chest and speak in your male voice you'll notice a lot of vibration. Try moving it up to your throat and I guarantee you'll sound more feminine! All you would have to do is practice keeping it there and practice the inflection you give your voice!

A few tips I DO have from research and observation: Women have a sing-songy inflection with their voice; they go up and down with the words as opposed to men where they have a more monotone inflection with their voice. Also, women tend to pronounce their words out and speak slowly and clearly whereas men speak quickly and to the point and sometimes have unfinished words. Also, women tend to end their sentences in almost a question type manner and men tend to end theirs on a down note.

Hope this helps!

[Guest Joss87]

. Also, women tend to pronounce their words out and speak slowly and clearly whereas men speak quickly and to the point and sometimes have unfinished words. Also, women tend to end their sentences in almost a question type manner and men tend to end theirs on a down note.

Hope this helps!

I always knew I got tongue tied easily, but once I started trying to work on my voice, I really started noticing how bad I was about mushing my words and mispronouncing small words. It definitely is one of the most subtle but important things I've noticed.

[Guest LauraJen]

A general rule with the inflection is - men tend to vary the volume, women tend to vary the pitch. So women will almost sing sentences in a speaking voice. Maybe the word "sing" is a bit of an exaggeration, but it does give rise to a fundamental difference in how men and women tend to speak.

Men tend to punch certain words out louder than others while keeping the pitch constant, kind of like repeatedly hitting the same key on a piano and occasionally striking it with force. If you use Audacity then you will know what a waveform will look like - try to keep the height of it about the same throughout the speech when you record.

[Guest meganstar]

I know it's not necessarily the same thing but this sounds very close to learning a new language. I study Korean as a hobby. I practice with my taekwondo instructors who are Korean. One piece of advice I heard especially for beginners was to pick certain phrases, words, sentences and repeat them over and over, gradually picking up pace and volume until you can speak the phrase very clearly at a natural pace with close to native speaking accent. I use this with new and old words, phrases, sentences, etc and it helps a lot. If anything it has allowed me to get over my nerves when attempting to speak with my Korean TKD instructors as I had a similar problem... I was so anxious over whether or not I would make a mistake or sound stupid that I lost my train of thought or the words I was about to speak wouldn't come out right. And they have both told me that my language skills have improved quite a bit lately.

What this does is reinforce the sounds in your mind giving you some rudimentary auditory feedback... think waveform-matching. After a few times doing this your brain begins to reinterpret your thoughts in the new way and things begin to come out more naturally without having to struggle. After a while the new waveforms become ingrained and are readily retrievable... yes I work in computers. :-)

I would think in your case a similar approach may help. Pick something simple like "Hi I'm Megan." or "Would you please pass the salt" or "Can you turn that up?" and say them over and over again slowly in your femme voice gradualy picking up the pace and volume/inflection until you're close to your target... and then repeat the process. For me the key has been to pick words and phrases that I may actually use when interacting with people. In my case its easy as a lot of the words and phrases I use are realted to TKD. Since you're still speaking english you at least don't have to worry about the words you're speaking as you already know them.

I study/practice Korean in my car on the way to and from work using cd's. I have about a 20-30 minute ride each way and it provides me with some time to practice as I've just mentioned. I don't know if the same approach would work in your situation but may be worth a try. I know that my (Korean) accent is helped tremendously by this as well as I'm able to modulate my voice in the same way that I hear from the cd without having to think about it. Of course, I've not tried speaking Korean as a woman.... hmmmm.

I hope my ramblings help.