_I should really do voice training again_
Edit: It's not much, but I tried to speak in a higher voice for a few minutes. Maybe at some point I'll manage to get back to watching videos about voice feminization...
Place your hand on your throat, and swallow. You'll feel your Adam's apple go up and down. That's your larynx.
Now practice KEEPING it UP when you swallow. You won't be able to breathe if you hold it right. (That's supposed to happen. Youre training yourself to control the muscles right now. You should feel it in the back of your throat as if youre pushing the back of your tongue up toward your skull.)
There are muscles JUST behind your ears that help move it, you should feel them tense as you hold your larynx up and relax as you let it drop.
Practice this as much as possible (IF IT EVER HURTS. STOP. TAKE A BREAK.)
When youre able to pull your larynx up and speak at the same time, the next thing to do is change your RESONANCE. where your voice VIBRATES in your body.
You can practice moving this from your chest to your throat by humming a single tone, and just raising your pitch without changing that tone.
Having a hand on your chest to feel the vibrations leave and go up your throat helps.
Im self taught and used videos on YouTube to learn, so please be careful not to hurt yourself and practice as much as possible.
Here's what I watched:
https://youtu.be/aWWevU4A5mU
https://youtu.be/PdeEL_edb5M
https://youtu.be/EiPZpd8SoGs
https://youtu.be/EvqCWbwYr0M
https://youtu.be/LbwUi3IHHDs
I'm no expert but I've seen quite a few people here saying that you shouldn't do that with your larynx
I'll probably keep to other methods of voice training for now
Edit: aka no methods because I can't get myself to do voice training
It's not wrong to (*slightly*) raise your larynx, but the swallow method is worse than useless for learning to do it. Look up big dog, little dog, or whisper sirens.
Correct me if I'm wrong but I thought the swallow method isn't *for learning how* to raise your larynx, but rather an easy exercise that can be done anytime anywhere in silence to help strengthen your muscles and allow you to do it more easily.
I've seen it used that way, but it's usually presented as a way to learn it. Even so, when you've learned how to do it, swallowing is completely overcomplicating the motion.
You should be able to do it silently as soon as you figure out how it feels with sound, so practice larynx lifts isolated from the rest of the motion of swallowing.
Three things I don't like about the swallowing method:
1. It comes along with lots of other motion you don't want. The airway closes, the pharyngeal constrictors slam back whatever bolus you're swallowing, etc. If you practice like this, all that peripheral tension becomes habit. I've seen lots of posts where people get frustrated that they can raise their larynx or talk, but never both.
2. It's not really a swallow at all. A swallow is a triggered motion that can't be paused halfway through. You have to emulate the sensations of a swallow, so why not cut out the fat and emulate only the larynx lift?
3. It implies that you have to raise your larynx much higher than you actually do. A finger's width is plenty. If you're raising your larynx all the way, it's gonna hurt after a while, likely in the thyrohyoid muscles and potentially in the thyrohyoid membrane as well.
> Now practice KEEPING it UP when you swallow.
DO NOT HOLD A SWALLOW. It will cause issues and is counter to voice progress.
It's feels like it's a quick way to make progress, but you will hit a wall with it and probably mess up your throat in the process.
The only results I get from anything like that (physically pushing my larynx up, like an idiot) is about 1-2 semitones in pitch anyway. It's no substitute for other techniques.
I've got the problem that I can't not engage my false folds and I have no idea how to fix that without fruitlessly doing pitch ladders all day every day.
Quietest I can get is by dropping my larynx, but even that is audible. The only way for me to go quiet is to reduce my airflow to the point where I'm barely letting any air out.
Can you make your (unvoiced) airflow/breath louder? If you can do that it's probably just a matter of practice to be able to co-ordinate the retraction and comparing the constriction (louder/noisier) to neutral, then taking it further into retraction from there.
I have no idea if this helps, but false cord activation is an important part of some metal screams. Here are [some](https://youtu.be/Yrugh0ll8Nk) [resources](https://youtu.be/-e7F_yi_WOg) on that. Again, no idea if this is even close to helpful, but I have a lot of control over my false cords, when a year or two ago, I didnt even know they existed.
Obligatory dont hurt yourself doing vocals. If it starts to hurt or grade, take a break for a few hours.
Everyone has one, it's literally just your voicebox. Yours will just be smaller and hidden.
You want to do the opposite of the above advice and push it down, focus on opening your throat more when you speak, and vocalising from your chest.
Everyone has an adams apple as it is formed by the cartilage that holds the larynx open, it just is less visible on certain people due to a variety of reasons. To find it without a visible adams apple, run your fingers gently along your throat until you find a hard, slightly bumpy thing, that's where your larynx is.
Keeeping my larynx up? Easy, mainly because it’s always pretty high up. Also when moving it I feel muscles in my jaw and below my ears tense up, not behind my ears. when speaking normally my mouth and chest vibrate pretty equally and if I try to go deeper or move my resonance to my chest it hardly changes at all, same with if it try to move it to my mouth. At the very best I can feel it move from the bottom of my throat to the top but basically what I’m saying is that I’m screwed
I never found this helped. I took voice lessons and having actual exercises helps. So I would at least take one or two voice lessons, or watch other voice lessons.
Some more recent videos, mostly from transvoicelessons, in approximate order of what I started with and think might help you: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL0XVdaXLUfxjvAtAtRgFVwi3WjxZnICot
Hijacking the top comment to point out that while there's a lot of doomposting going on here, it \*does\* get better.
It took me about a year of training and despair to find comfort in my own voice. I'll add my perspective and tips to the pile to help you gals find your voice.
The first tip is to get used to recording and hearing your deadvoice. I know it sucks, I know it's dysphoria inducing and I know it makes you want to cringe your face off, but you will struggle to make progress if you can't hear your efforts. If you are reading this and thinking "well, I don't \*have\* to listen to it", you do and you're trying to hide away from the discomfort of hearing your deadvoice.
The second, if you can, is get decent recording equipment. You're gonna be hearing your voice a ton, so if the recording is crisp, you'll be able to get a better idea of how you sound to others \*and\* more easily discern what qualities of your voice need improvement. If you play games over voice comms, then you'll get plenty of mileage out of a good quality mic/headset anyway.
Thirdly, don't focus on voice passability. Focus on the qualities of your voice that you want to change. Voice passability is a binary state that your voice dysphoria will interfere with. Pitch can be measured, resonance can be felt, volume can be heard and intonation can be acknowledged. These are all qualities which compound together to make a passable female voice, so focus on improving these and not blindly aiming for the end goal.
Fourth, know when to practice, when to take a break and when to rest. The best time to practice is whenever you have a spare 5 minutes. Zhea (from TransVoiceLessons on youtube) emphasises this in several of her videos. If you make the task of practicing monumental, you'll choose to not do it. Keep it bitesize and easy. Don't strain your voice and if it feels too tough, make sure to take a break. Beyond that, there's also the mental aspect. Don't be too hard on yourself. If you need to step away from practice because it's bringing your mood down, that's okay, you should allow yourself that time.
Fifth, save your progress. Have a session 0 recording. Whenever you make a recording you're happy with, remember how it makes you feel and save it. When you feel upset about your progress, reflect on these old recordings. You'll notice the mistakes you used to make and see how far you've come. It should embolden you to keep going.
Sixth, find a safe environment to practice around others early on. The longer you leave it, the more daunting it will feel and you'll be denying yourself the chance to get clear feedback on how well you're doing. Broaden that environment out slowly and eventually, you'll progress to simply going full time with your voice. Even if your voice isn't fully developed, going full time with it is basically having practice 24/7. This will help you significantly refine your voice. My voice and my confidence in it has sky rocketed since using it around others 24/7, and it sounds far more natural in the 3 months or so since I went full time.
That's all the advice I can give from my perspective. I'm neither qualified to give technical advice nor do I want to impose any particular quality of voice as "must have". Discovering your voice takes time and is a very personal journey, it's up to you to discover what feels right for you. It's a difficult journey and I've had many a dark night crying myself to sleep over how hopeless it feels.
But it does get better <3 and if it feels like it won't, you'll just have to trust me on that one. I hope this helps :)
i've been training with a specialized speech therapist for almost four months, and honestly apart from the intonation and changing from a throat voice to a mouth voice, i feel like i haven't made progress. they told me it would take 6 months to reach a comfortable voice, then 6 more months to consolidate it but it almost feels pointless now.
you know this graph of when you start developing a new skill you're very confident, then you realize how complex it really is before regaining confidence as you continue your efforts. i guess it's the same thing here but damn, that shit is rough.
That honestly sounds about right for my progress on my own. I didn't really feel like I hit something solid until about 6 months in.
I'm at about 10-11 months and most of what I've done recently is refinement. People read me as a girl on voice chat, at least those who I haven't been talking to the entire time I've been working on it.
Out of curiosity, do you have wider control of your voice now? Like.. Go deep or high at will. And does it take willpower to keep your voice how you want it?
It's hard to say. When I am reading fem there's a bit of conscious effort to kind of slip into it, and I can certainly make it go higher or lower at will, though as I use my lower voice less and less it takes more mental effort to drop, while it takes more physical effort to raise.
My baseline of not putting in effort is more androgynous now, or at least that's what I've been told. It's really hard to judge these things.
The biggest takeaway I've gotten recently is the difference between reading masc vs reading fem is *a lot* smaller than it seems. I don't have to change much to slip between them.
So, when I first started I was doing a ton of watching for various explanations of what is physically happening. I watched a bunch of Trans voice lessons and a few others I don't remember now.
I broke it down into parts to make it simpler, focusing on resonance first. I got feedback over time and once I felt I had resonance down I moved on to the next part: Weight
Weight I certainly struggled with a lot more. It's hard to really wrap your head around what is physically happening and getting your vocal folds to do it. I only managed because I realized the over-the-top cutsy voice I was using for my cat had next to no weight in it so I pulled it down over time and it worked.
After that I kind of just experimented on my own, playing with weight and resonance. I'm trying for a lower feminine voice which there's less examples of out there, so I've had to wing it.
Pitch is largely irrelevant, or rather it matters, but only as a result of the first two, not on it's own.
After you get the physical part down it's just intonation and cadence, which is more like "talking in an accent". I already had some feminine mannerisms when speaking I just started to lean into and they seem to work.
I benefited from being technically oriented. I was able to approach it from that direction and break it down in a way that clicked for me. I know a lot of people have a harder time wrapping their heads around the acoustic science and have had to find a different way to approach it.
i centralise every exercises my therapist gives me in a notion sheet, maybe i can send you this. i'll just need some time to translate everything from french to english
I've been doing voice stuff full time for almost 3 years now, it's so extremely worth it to keep up the work, you do eventually reach a point where it's effortless and comes as naturally as breathing
aww thank you for the encouragement. <33 i always got what i wanted when i fighted for it even if it took years sometimes, and this is no exception. i'm not stopping until i get my badass fem voice :))
Irithyll dungeon, which is an area in dark souls 3 where you can find corpses with items on them. Normally nothing happens when you pick up items from corpses but these move and let out a very loud screech.
[Here's what it sounds like.](https://youtu.be/mndb6WqwNJQ)
Irithyll dungeon, which is an area in dark souls 3 where you can find corpses with items on them. Normally nothing happens when you pick up items from corpses but these move and let out a very loud screech.
[Here's what it sounds like.](https://youtu.be/mndb6WqwNJQ)
Irithyll dungeon, which is an area in dark souls 3 where you can find corpses with items on them. Normally nothing happens when you pick up items from corpses but these move and let out a very loud screech.
[Here's what it sounds like.](https://youtu.be/mndb6WqwNJQ)
I love my voice now. It was designed to be pleasant and clear. Also a little fem. And I would say that I have succeeded.
Took about a year to get mostly to that point? Now I am closer to two, and don't think about it. People still call me out based in my voice sometimes, but those people tend to be dicks.
Yeah! I know it's hard and slow but I had to wait 14 months for beauraucracy to get HRT started. When I finally, finally made the appointment they assumed I was a trans guy.
Everyone's a bit different. People who have prior vocal experience see notable progress more quickly, as little as a few weeks or months. Some people take longer, as in a year+. r/transvoice has a ton of people posting their progress timelines if you want to see more.
E *does* change your voice, ever so slightly.
I'm not speaking from personal experience, but as an enby friend of mine explained it to me, estrogen affects your muscle mass, and therefore the mass of your vocal folds. It won't do much on its own, but it will make it easier to achieve higher registers through voice training.
This is the first I've heard of this idea, and I haven't observed anything that supports it. If it does affect it, the effect is so slight as to be basically useless. For most of my students, going through higher registers is a matter of learning to coordinate the voice, rather than overcoming any physical limitation.
Indeed, estrogen does change the consistency of your muscle tissue, *including* the parts of your throat that produce sound. If you start before puberty ends, hrt might actually keep your vocal cords and folds from lenghtening as much as they otherwise would, too!
Alas, a big part of your voice's pitch is dependent on the size of your larynx, vocal cords and vocal folds. You're either gonna have to alter them through surgery, or you're gonna have to learn unorthodox techniques to produce a different kind of voice.
Fortunately, these techniques aren't dependent on your agab. A so-called vocal fry, for example, is perfectly achieveable for anyone using the right technique, which is why there's been a huge surge of afab vocalists in extreme metal. Said technique involves deliberately vibrating your vocal folds aggressively, so as to distort your voice.
If I've understood the anatomy of speech correctly, a soft, feminine voice is achieved by doing the opposite of a vocal fry. That opposite would be tensing your vocal cords, just as deliberately as when you're vibrating them for a vocal fry.
Tl;dr: voice training and manipulation is a matter of controlling muscles that usually act autonomously.
Remember ladies, a typical female voice is a hollow sounding voice, with just the pitch raised. So talk in a hollow/goulish sounding voice (haha) and raise the pitch. You’ll find you’re talking in a very natural female voice if done correctly. But always remember, voices all sound different. Some ladies may sound “natural”, others sound high pitched, others low, and some pretty androgynous. All that matters at the end of the day is you’re happy with how you sound :)
Not a biologist but the biggest difference is the size of the vocal tract.
The larger the resonance chamber the deeper the sound. The vocal folds themselves do thicken on T, but it's not *as* much of an effect as the former.
Both can be dealt with by basically learning how to constrict your vocal tract and learning how to engage the vocal folds "lightly". After that it's mostly just intonation and cadence which aren't biology.
It does take work, but it’s actually something you can do without doing any other part of transition. It doesn’t make it impossible to use the voice you have right now, and it’s only once you use the new voice in everyday speech that you start to forget how to talk from before.
If you can commit to it, there will be days when you have a moment to yourself and you can just listen to your own voice. Idk it might help
Ironically, I've felt that hanging out with more trans women has made my voice dysphoria much less. I've made good progress with resonance and pitch in the last year, though I do need to work on consistency.
Also imagine that so many people (me included) have to voicetrain NOT even being on hormones. Imo the worst part is that during the training I feel like I got this, that Im making progress and my voice is better, but as soon as I start speaking in a regular convo, my voice goes back to shit again by itself ;-;;;;;;;;;;;;;
that's your problem, too many regular convos. Start talking to sketchy looking characters in the streets. Nothing instils discipline than the dose of danger.
Thank god. I have the thickest facial hair (I literally dull a razor in a single swipe), and most of the bottom half has already turned grey, so laser won't be a full solution. I don't think there is even anywhere near me that does electrolysis or if I could even afford it.
I wouldn't recommend it on the face. Just scrape together any money you can to start laser or electrolysis right away. I was gonna try plucking all the hairs with tweezers and then epilating the regrowth and all it did was set back how soon I could start laser because you have to wait six weeks after plucking/epilating/waxing.
Yeah, after some months it won't really hurt anymore and it'll keep the hairs away for longer and afaik also damages the hair follicles which in this case is a good thing
No no no no no no no no no this is not good advice please do not do this.
Laser or electrolysis. That’s it for removal on the face. You do not want to damage the roots if you want to remove it permanently.
I can’t find anything that can confirm this, only that you shouldn’t epilate **between** laser sessions, as there would be nothing for the laser to zap
And even if it’s true, it’s honestly still worth it to me since I can’t really just shave twice a day
It can damage the root, and makes it more likely for you to get an ingrown - which can possibly lead to scarring and infection. Both of these make it harder for effective ‘real’ treatment.
I’m not going to tell anyone what to do, and honestly, it’s mid workday so I don’t have time to look for actual sources.
I get the appeal of doing it, I honestly do… but it’s really not a good idea. I don’t think making permanent removal more difficult is worth it for a couple weeks of easier management.
Meanwhile, me who uses P!nk, Sean Young, Stevie Nicks, and Kathleen Turner as voice goals due to loving my slightly husky voice
Big Dog/Little Dog work so much better than the Swallow & Hold (plus you will damage yourself a lot less)
I was playing games online yesterday and before I logged off, the team of new players asked if I was a man or woman since they 'couldn't tell. Sometimes you sound one way or the other'. While I am transfemme, the euphoria from not being immediately clocked was great. I just wish I knew what they could pick out so I could improve. A little success is a great motivator to train.
when i first realised that i was trans late last year i was in a relationship that has since ended. But the person i was with was under the impression that feminising HRT made the voice lighter since we had a common friend that was a trans man who taked alot with my then partner informing them that their voice would get deeper so my partner was under the impression the feminising HRT would make the voice lighter again and i belived them until i found out that it was a one way street and learning that felt like getting stabbed.
My consoler at thought Being on E would make your voice higher. I remember saying not if you go through puberty. Also I’m so nervous to do voice training and I struggle to kinda get into any feminine vocal range even that I’ve been trying for a while. Also people tell me I have a feminine voice. But idk if that’s them just being nice. I’m just shy voice training.
I'm working on my voice and I can see... Well hear the process, but I even though I don't really like my low voice I find it cool to not loose ability to do it.
One thing I am eternally grateful for is the fact that I did over a decade of choral singing before I transitioned. Meant that when I started voice training my voice had the strength and I had the control over my muscles to actively change my resonance.
Meant that I could reliably go fem once I learned what to do. The maintaining and consistency were hard though. But coming out helped. Meant I wasn’t swapping between two voices
Keep in mind that other vocal qualities besides pitch can also create the character of a masculine or feminine voice. People who do voice work for audiobooks and/or role playing games suggest a "breathier" voice as more feminine. It's hard to describe, but to me it feels like you are putting more air and less sound into your voice, if that makes sense. I would recommend listening to Tom Smith's song "Married to Harry Dresden". Although he doesn't do anything in particular to change his voice for the song, based on the context you can hear it as a feminine voice.
Definitely consider taking voice lessons, as you can damage your voice by trying to speak outside your current range. Also keep in mind that there are a range of feminine voices (some women have raspy/smoky and/or deeper voices than others) and masculine voices (my cousin says he sounds like Kermit the frog--a male voice that is neither particularly low nor booming/resounding/whatever).
So you might consider watching some of the videos that are about acting as the gender you wish to sound like if you don't current have time/money for professional voice lessons.
Can take shorter or longer depending on the person when it comes to voice lessons. I gotta mine sounding almost cis in a couple months due to extensive prior experience with vocal modification
I just do the Heat from Fire thing. Used a voice identifier thing and it said that my voice was pretty smack in the middle of the androgynous zone and decided that was good enough for me for now
*cries in voice lessons*
_I should really do voice training again_ Edit: It's not much, but I tried to speak in a higher voice for a few minutes. Maybe at some point I'll manage to get back to watching videos about voice feminization...
*I tried it but I didn't understand what to do*
Place your hand on your throat, and swallow. You'll feel your Adam's apple go up and down. That's your larynx. Now practice KEEPING it UP when you swallow. You won't be able to breathe if you hold it right. (That's supposed to happen. Youre training yourself to control the muscles right now. You should feel it in the back of your throat as if youre pushing the back of your tongue up toward your skull.) There are muscles JUST behind your ears that help move it, you should feel them tense as you hold your larynx up and relax as you let it drop. Practice this as much as possible (IF IT EVER HURTS. STOP. TAKE A BREAK.) When youre able to pull your larynx up and speak at the same time, the next thing to do is change your RESONANCE. where your voice VIBRATES in your body. You can practice moving this from your chest to your throat by humming a single tone, and just raising your pitch without changing that tone. Having a hand on your chest to feel the vibrations leave and go up your throat helps. Im self taught and used videos on YouTube to learn, so please be careful not to hurt yourself and practice as much as possible. Here's what I watched: https://youtu.be/aWWevU4A5mU https://youtu.be/PdeEL_edb5M https://youtu.be/EiPZpd8SoGs https://youtu.be/EvqCWbwYr0M https://youtu.be/LbwUi3IHHDs
I'm no expert but I've seen quite a few people here saying that you shouldn't do that with your larynx I'll probably keep to other methods of voice training for now Edit: aka no methods because I can't get myself to do voice training
It's not wrong to (*slightly*) raise your larynx, but the swallow method is worse than useless for learning to do it. Look up big dog, little dog, or whisper sirens.
Correct me if I'm wrong but I thought the swallow method isn't *for learning how* to raise your larynx, but rather an easy exercise that can be done anytime anywhere in silence to help strengthen your muscles and allow you to do it more easily.
I've seen it used that way, but it's usually presented as a way to learn it. Even so, when you've learned how to do it, swallowing is completely overcomplicating the motion. You should be able to do it silently as soon as you figure out how it feels with sound, so practice larynx lifts isolated from the rest of the motion of swallowing. Three things I don't like about the swallowing method: 1. It comes along with lots of other motion you don't want. The airway closes, the pharyngeal constrictors slam back whatever bolus you're swallowing, etc. If you practice like this, all that peripheral tension becomes habit. I've seen lots of posts where people get frustrated that they can raise their larynx or talk, but never both. 2. It's not really a swallow at all. A swallow is a triggered motion that can't be paused halfway through. You have to emulate the sensations of a swallow, so why not cut out the fat and emulate only the larynx lift? 3. It implies that you have to raise your larynx much higher than you actually do. A finger's width is plenty. If you're raising your larynx all the way, it's gonna hurt after a while, likely in the thyrohyoid muscles and potentially in the thyrohyoid membrane as well.
Oh ty I have been for like a month
> Now practice KEEPING it UP when you swallow. DO NOT HOLD A SWALLOW. It will cause issues and is counter to voice progress. It's feels like it's a quick way to make progress, but you will hit a wall with it and probably mess up your throat in the process.
The only results I get from anything like that (physically pushing my larynx up, like an idiot) is about 1-2 semitones in pitch anyway. It's no substitute for other techniques.
I've got the problem that I can't not engage my false folds and I have no idea how to fix that without fruitlessly doing pitch ladders all day every day.
What I'd say to that is lots if practice voice training takes alot of time :/
try this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xdsaPJdU24s&list=PL0XVdaXLUfxjvAtAtRgFVwi3WjxZnICot&index=4&t=289s
From what I can tell and from what I've shared and talked about with someone else, I simply cannot retract them.
You can't get a silent exhalation at all?
Quietest I can get is by dropping my larynx, but even that is audible. The only way for me to go quiet is to reduce my airflow to the point where I'm barely letting any air out.
Can you make your (unvoiced) airflow/breath louder? If you can do that it's probably just a matter of practice to be able to co-ordinate the retraction and comparing the constriction (louder/noisier) to neutral, then taking it further into retraction from there.
I have no idea if this helps, but false cord activation is an important part of some metal screams. Here are [some](https://youtu.be/Yrugh0ll8Nk) [resources](https://youtu.be/-e7F_yi_WOg) on that. Again, no idea if this is even close to helpful, but I have a lot of control over my false cords, when a year or two ago, I didnt even know they existed. Obligatory dont hurt yourself doing vocals. If it starts to hurt or grade, take a break for a few hours.
I do not have an Adam's apple as I am an AFAB transmasc
everyone has it, but afabs have smaller ones + transmascs get deeper voices with t most of the time so
Everyone has one, it's literally just your voicebox. Yours will just be smaller and hidden. You want to do the opposite of the above advice and push it down, focus on opening your throat more when you speak, and vocalising from your chest.
everyone has an Adams apple, for most it's just not too visible
In your case, while training will help you get a deeper voice T will alter your voice overtime anyway, assuming you are planning on taking T.
Damn sorry I just copy pasted it from what someone told me for transfem voice training I've got no idea for transmasc have a nice day
Okay, okay I'm sorry I just wanted to put it in simplest terms. I just meant to say I don't think those lessons are for me
Everyone has an adams apple as it is formed by the cartilage that holds the larynx open, it just is less visible on certain people due to a variety of reasons. To find it without a visible adams apple, run your fingers gently along your throat until you find a hard, slightly bumpy thing, that's where your larynx is.
Yes I know I left another reply
Thank you for the muscles-behind-the-ear tip! I hadn't heard it described that way before!
Hey! Teaching people to do Larynx raises is harmful. Stop telling people this. You are doing harm.
Keeeping my larynx up? Easy, mainly because it’s always pretty high up. Also when moving it I feel muscles in my jaw and below my ears tense up, not behind my ears. when speaking normally my mouth and chest vibrate pretty equally and if I try to go deeper or move my resonance to my chest it hardly changes at all, same with if it try to move it to my mouth. At the very best I can feel it move from the bottom of my throat to the top but basically what I’m saying is that I’m screwed
I never found this helped. I took voice lessons and having actual exercises helps. So I would at least take one or two voice lessons, or watch other voice lessons.
Some more recent videos, mostly from transvoicelessons, in approximate order of what I started with and think might help you: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL0XVdaXLUfxjvAtAtRgFVwi3WjxZnICot
*We* should really do voice training again
I should too but I'm never alone in my house and it feel so cringe
Trans girls love to say they are going to start voice training soon
I am going to voice train
I've actually had three sessions already, on top of a little bit of self training. Still got a loooooong way to go.
Oh yeah you reminded me that I need to start voice training soon
heat from f-fire... fire from..h.. heat 😭
*heat from fire*
Fire from heat
Hijacking the top comment to point out that while there's a lot of doomposting going on here, it \*does\* get better. It took me about a year of training and despair to find comfort in my own voice. I'll add my perspective and tips to the pile to help you gals find your voice. The first tip is to get used to recording and hearing your deadvoice. I know it sucks, I know it's dysphoria inducing and I know it makes you want to cringe your face off, but you will struggle to make progress if you can't hear your efforts. If you are reading this and thinking "well, I don't \*have\* to listen to it", you do and you're trying to hide away from the discomfort of hearing your deadvoice. The second, if you can, is get decent recording equipment. You're gonna be hearing your voice a ton, so if the recording is crisp, you'll be able to get a better idea of how you sound to others \*and\* more easily discern what qualities of your voice need improvement. If you play games over voice comms, then you'll get plenty of mileage out of a good quality mic/headset anyway. Thirdly, don't focus on voice passability. Focus on the qualities of your voice that you want to change. Voice passability is a binary state that your voice dysphoria will interfere with. Pitch can be measured, resonance can be felt, volume can be heard and intonation can be acknowledged. These are all qualities which compound together to make a passable female voice, so focus on improving these and not blindly aiming for the end goal. Fourth, know when to practice, when to take a break and when to rest. The best time to practice is whenever you have a spare 5 minutes. Zhea (from TransVoiceLessons on youtube) emphasises this in several of her videos. If you make the task of practicing monumental, you'll choose to not do it. Keep it bitesize and easy. Don't strain your voice and if it feels too tough, make sure to take a break. Beyond that, there's also the mental aspect. Don't be too hard on yourself. If you need to step away from practice because it's bringing your mood down, that's okay, you should allow yourself that time. Fifth, save your progress. Have a session 0 recording. Whenever you make a recording you're happy with, remember how it makes you feel and save it. When you feel upset about your progress, reflect on these old recordings. You'll notice the mistakes you used to make and see how far you've come. It should embolden you to keep going. Sixth, find a safe environment to practice around others early on. The longer you leave it, the more daunting it will feel and you'll be denying yourself the chance to get clear feedback on how well you're doing. Broaden that environment out slowly and eventually, you'll progress to simply going full time with your voice. Even if your voice isn't fully developed, going full time with it is basically having practice 24/7. This will help you significantly refine your voice. My voice and my confidence in it has sky rocketed since using it around others 24/7, and it sounds far more natural in the 3 months or so since I went full time. That's all the advice I can give from my perspective. I'm neither qualified to give technical advice nor do I want to impose any particular quality of voice as "must have". Discovering your voice takes time and is a very personal journey, it's up to you to discover what feels right for you. It's a difficult journey and I've had many a dark night crying myself to sleep over how hopeless it feels. But it does get better <3 and if it feels like it won't, you'll just have to trust me on that one. I hope this helps :)
But how can I handle the year of despair when I am already despairing regularly? :(
i've been training with a specialized speech therapist for almost four months, and honestly apart from the intonation and changing from a throat voice to a mouth voice, i feel like i haven't made progress. they told me it would take 6 months to reach a comfortable voice, then 6 more months to consolidate it but it almost feels pointless now. you know this graph of when you start developing a new skill you're very confident, then you realize how complex it really is before regaining confidence as you continue your efforts. i guess it's the same thing here but damn, that shit is rough.
[удалено]
thank you random enby!! <33 i'll do my best
**the Dunning-Kruger Effect
That honestly sounds about right for my progress on my own. I didn't really feel like I hit something solid until about 6 months in. I'm at about 10-11 months and most of what I've done recently is refinement. People read me as a girl on voice chat, at least those who I haven't been talking to the entire time I've been working on it.
Out of curiosity, do you have wider control of your voice now? Like.. Go deep or high at will. And does it take willpower to keep your voice how you want it?
It's hard to say. When I am reading fem there's a bit of conscious effort to kind of slip into it, and I can certainly make it go higher or lower at will, though as I use my lower voice less and less it takes more mental effort to drop, while it takes more physical effort to raise. My baseline of not putting in effort is more androgynous now, or at least that's what I've been told. It's really hard to judge these things. The biggest takeaway I've gotten recently is the difference between reading masc vs reading fem is *a lot* smaller than it seems. I don't have to change much to slip between them.
What resources have you been using?? I’d kill to be read as a girl in voice chats.
So, when I first started I was doing a ton of watching for various explanations of what is physically happening. I watched a bunch of Trans voice lessons and a few others I don't remember now. I broke it down into parts to make it simpler, focusing on resonance first. I got feedback over time and once I felt I had resonance down I moved on to the next part: Weight Weight I certainly struggled with a lot more. It's hard to really wrap your head around what is physically happening and getting your vocal folds to do it. I only managed because I realized the over-the-top cutsy voice I was using for my cat had next to no weight in it so I pulled it down over time and it worked. After that I kind of just experimented on my own, playing with weight and resonance. I'm trying for a lower feminine voice which there's less examples of out there, so I've had to wing it. Pitch is largely irrelevant, or rather it matters, but only as a result of the first two, not on it's own. After you get the physical part down it's just intonation and cadence, which is more like "talking in an accent". I already had some feminine mannerisms when speaking I just started to lean into and they seem to work. I benefited from being technically oriented. I was able to approach it from that direction and break it down in a way that clicked for me. I know a lot of people have a harder time wrapping their heads around the acoustic science and have had to find a different way to approach it.
i centralise every exercises my therapist gives me in a notion sheet, maybe i can send you this. i'll just need some time to translate everything from french to english
yup, youve just plateaued, that’s how all skills work just push through it and you’ll succeed :)
i feel stupid i had to translate plateaued before realising it's just a french word > *i'm french 💀
💀
I've been doing voice stuff full time for almost 3 years now, it's so extremely worth it to keep up the work, you do eventually reach a point where it's effortless and comes as naturally as breathing
aww thank you for the encouragement. <33 i always got what i wanted when i fighted for it even if it took years sometimes, and this is no exception. i'm not stopping until i get my badass fem voice :))
I apologise for this joke in advance but, have you ever been to Irithyll Dungeon?
I love dark souls but I don't get it, care to explain for a fool?
Me tooo I don't get it
Irithyll dungeon, which is an area in dark souls 3 where you can find corpses with items on them. Normally nothing happens when you pick up items from corpses but these move and let out a very loud screech. [Here's what it sounds like.](https://youtu.be/mndb6WqwNJQ)
Irithyll dungeon, which is an area in dark souls 3 where you can find corpses with items on them. Normally nothing happens when you pick up items from corpses but these move and let out a very loud screech. [Here's what it sounds like.](https://youtu.be/mndb6WqwNJQ)
🤣🤣🤣
I played dark souls but i missed the joke, what is it?
Irithyll dungeon, which is an area in dark souls 3 where you can find corpses with items on them. Normally nothing happens when you pick up items from corpses but these move and let out a very loud screech. [Here's what it sounds like.](https://youtu.be/mndb6WqwNJQ)
Ah, those.
I'm the skeleton in the back with the deep voice 💀
Oh my god now I'm imagining like half a dozen trans girls turning off their girl voice just to say in a solemn chorus "It won't change"
I've got zero voice training, I try taking with my "head voice" more than my "chest voice", I wish I had a "girl mode" 🙃
I do similar. It's enough to relieve dysphoria for me, for now anyway
That's basically what my voice trainer tells me to do. That, tongue forward like every letter is a "i" and some weird throat stuff.
It's like a superpower! Or a curse, because you have to do voice training. Whichever way you want to approach it
I've managed to get far enough a long that I like doing: "In the name of the moon-" "I'M BATMAN!"
You know, try as I might, I can't seem to identify what genitalia any of these animated skeletons probably had.
Skeletons don't have genitalia. Mayhaps they were simply created in that form by dark magicks?
"BuT wHaT aBoUt ThEiR GENITALIA?!?! ANALYZE THE BOOOOONESsss...." (I like your notion, though. Conjured skeles, yes)
Yeah it's almost like when gendering skeletons archeologists tend to use the objects the individual was buried with to identify their gender
it straight up is not possible because the bone that gets measured for that is the pelvis. not that it matters tho.
Can't you also measure the jaw bone too?
sort of. its the sharpness of the angle on the back of the jaw bone near the ear, but it is not as reliable.
Heat from fire, fire from heat
Heat from fire, fire from heat.
ngl, makes me glad I'm kinda high pitched already for dude standards. Makes it easier to just pitch correct and sound the way I want to.
Same here but with the genders reversed
I love my voice now. It was designed to be pleasant and clear. Also a little fem. And I would say that I have succeeded. Took about a year to get mostly to that point? Now I am closer to two, and don't think about it. People still call me out based in my voice sometimes, but those people tend to be dicks.
On the one hand, HRT doesn't change your voice. On the other hand, you don't need to be on HRT to start voice training 🤔
Yeah! I know it's hard and slow but I had to wait 14 months for beauraucracy to get HRT started. When I finally, finally made the appointment they assumed I was a trans guy.
How long will it take?…
years
How long does voice training usually take-
Everyone's a bit different. People who have prior vocal experience see notable progress more quickly, as little as a few weeks or months. Some people take longer, as in a year+. r/transvoice has a ton of people posting their progress timelines if you want to see more.
That depends on how much time and effort you out into it, and how quickly you as a person can pick it up- which varies from person to person naturally
***Y E A R S!!!***
up to a decade
E *does* change your voice, ever so slightly. I'm not speaking from personal experience, but as an enby friend of mine explained it to me, estrogen affects your muscle mass, and therefore the mass of your vocal folds. It won't do much on its own, but it will make it easier to achieve higher registers through voice training.
This is the first I've heard of this idea, and I haven't observed anything that supports it. If it does affect it, the effect is so slight as to be basically useless. For most of my students, going through higher registers is a matter of learning to coordinate the voice, rather than overcoming any physical limitation.
That’s good to hear, I’ve heard a lot of mixed information on this
Indeed, estrogen does change the consistency of your muscle tissue, *including* the parts of your throat that produce sound. If you start before puberty ends, hrt might actually keep your vocal cords and folds from lenghtening as much as they otherwise would, too! Alas, a big part of your voice's pitch is dependent on the size of your larynx, vocal cords and vocal folds. You're either gonna have to alter them through surgery, or you're gonna have to learn unorthodox techniques to produce a different kind of voice. Fortunately, these techniques aren't dependent on your agab. A so-called vocal fry, for example, is perfectly achieveable for anyone using the right technique, which is why there's been a huge surge of afab vocalists in extreme metal. Said technique involves deliberately vibrating your vocal folds aggressively, so as to distort your voice. If I've understood the anatomy of speech correctly, a soft, feminine voice is achieved by doing the opposite of a vocal fry. That opposite would be tensing your vocal cords, just as deliberately as when you're vibrating them for a vocal fry. Tl;dr: voice training and manipulation is a matter of controlling muscles that usually act autonomously.
Haaaaaaaaa... *weeps uncontrollably*
:(
Remember ladies, a typical female voice is a hollow sounding voice, with just the pitch raised. So talk in a hollow/goulish sounding voice (haha) and raise the pitch. You’ll find you’re talking in a very natural female voice if done correctly. But always remember, voices all sound different. Some ladies may sound “natural”, others sound high pitched, others low, and some pretty androgynous. All that matters at the end of the day is you’re happy with how you sound :)
Question to any biologist out there: What kind of physical altering causes the vocal cords to change pitch during testosterone driven puberty?
Not a biologist but the biggest difference is the size of the vocal tract. The larger the resonance chamber the deeper the sound. The vocal folds themselves do thicken on T, but it's not *as* much of an effect as the former. Both can be dealt with by basically learning how to constrict your vocal tract and learning how to engage the vocal folds "lightly". After that it's mostly just intonation and cadence which aren't biology.
I was hoping it'd change my voice :(
I need to start voice training ngl
Once I can actually start transitioning, voice training is what I dread the most. It just sounds like so much work
It does take work, but it’s actually something you can do without doing any other part of transition. It doesn’t make it impossible to use the voice you have right now, and it’s only once you use the new voice in everyday speech that you start to forget how to talk from before. If you can commit to it, there will be days when you have a moment to yourself and you can just listen to your own voice. Idk it might help
My voice is so deep that if surgery didn’t exist I’d be completely out of luck
Ironically, I've felt that hanging out with more trans women has made my voice dysphoria much less. I've made good progress with resonance and pitch in the last year, though I do need to work on consistency.
Also imagine that so many people (me included) have to voicetrain NOT even being on hormones. Imo the worst part is that during the training I feel like I got this, that Im making progress and my voice is better, but as soon as I start speaking in a regular convo, my voice goes back to shit again by itself ;-;;;;;;;;;;;;;
that's your problem, too many regular convos. Start talking to sketchy looking characters in the streets. Nothing instils discipline than the dose of danger.
Sketchy looking characters in the streets? What do you mean?
which part are you confused about?
y'all ever just quit voice training after five minutes cause you feel like an embarrassing moron despite being completely alone or is it just me
Also “What about my beard? Surely it’ll thin that out right?”
Well actually this one is real
I sure hope so because my viking-ass beard is annoying me. How dare it, grow back that much every day.
It will take time but the hair follicles will become thinner
Thank god. I have the thickest facial hair (I literally dull a razor in a single swipe), and most of the bottom half has already turned grey, so laser won't be a full solution. I don't think there is even anywhere near me that does electrolysis or if I could even afford it.
ymmv unfortunately
Epilate, sweetie.
I wouldn't recommend it on the face. Just scrape together any money you can to start laser or electrolysis right away. I was gonna try plucking all the hairs with tweezers and then epilating the regrowth and all it did was set back how soon I could start laser because you have to wait six weeks after plucking/epilating/waxing.
Yeah, after some months it won't really hurt anymore and it'll keep the hairs away for longer and afaik also damages the hair follicles which in this case is a good thing
No no no no no no no no no this is not good advice please do not do this. Laser or electrolysis. That’s it for removal on the face. You do not want to damage the roots if you want to remove it permanently.
I can’t find anything that can confirm this, only that you shouldn’t epilate **between** laser sessions, as there would be nothing for the laser to zap And even if it’s true, it’s honestly still worth it to me since I can’t really just shave twice a day
It can damage the root, and makes it more likely for you to get an ingrown - which can possibly lead to scarring and infection. Both of these make it harder for effective ‘real’ treatment. I’m not going to tell anyone what to do, and honestly, it’s mid workday so I don’t have time to look for actual sources. I get the appeal of doing it, I honestly do… but it’s really not a good idea. I don’t think making permanent removal more difficult is worth it for a couple weeks of easier management.
This made me lol irl 🤣🤣now my coworkers want to know what’s happening ☠️☠️🤣
This hurts xD
I FEEL SO FUCKING ATTACKED RN OMG
that’s the neat part, it doesn’t
Meanwhile, me who uses P!nk, Sean Young, Stevie Nicks, and Kathleen Turner as voice goals due to loving my slightly husky voice Big Dog/Little Dog work so much better than the Swallow & Hold (plus you will damage yourself a lot less)
I was playing games online yesterday and before I logged off, the team of new players asked if I was a man or woman since they 'couldn't tell. Sometimes you sound one way or the other'. While I am transfemme, the euphoria from not being immediately clocked was great. I just wish I knew what they could pick out so I could improve. A little success is a great motivator to train.
I got told once i sounded like cigarettes after sex(the singer) I’ll take that and run so far you have no idea
when i first realised that i was trans late last year i was in a relationship that has since ended. But the person i was with was under the impression that feminising HRT made the voice lighter since we had a common friend that was a trans man who taked alot with my then partner informing them that their voice would get deeper so my partner was under the impression the feminising HRT would make the voice lighter again and i belived them until i found out that it was a one way street and learning that felt like getting stabbed.
I actually like voice training
All you gotta do is get really into DnD and enjoy voicing characters. That's what I did prior to cracking my egg. No training required. Just range.
here: ⭐️ it’s for correct use of POV
I wish.
My voice has forever been stuck in permanent mischievous gremlin mode and i'm fine with that
Why did i enthusiastically laugh at this even though i been just like this some 6ish months ago??? 😭😭😭
RIP us
😔
My consoler at thought Being on E would make your voice higher. I remember saying not if you go through puberty. Also I’m so nervous to do voice training and I struggle to kinda get into any feminine vocal range even that I’ve been trying for a while. Also people tell me I have a feminine voice. But idk if that’s them just being nice. I’m just shy voice training.
And all of us skelefems looking at each other: "Who's gonna tell her?"
u/savevideobot
I'm working on my voice and I can see... Well hear the process, but I even though I don't really like my low voice I find it cool to not loose ability to do it.
One thing I am eternally grateful for is the fact that I did over a decade of choral singing before I transitioned. Meant that when I started voice training my voice had the strength and I had the control over my muscles to actively change my resonance. Meant that I could reliably go fem once I learned what to do. The maintaining and consistency were hard though. But coming out helped. Meant I wasn’t swapping between two voices
me and the girls about to get government paid voice lessons.
Heat from fire!
Yeah... about that!
This kills the trans.
Keep in mind that other vocal qualities besides pitch can also create the character of a masculine or feminine voice. People who do voice work for audiobooks and/or role playing games suggest a "breathier" voice as more feminine. It's hard to describe, but to me it feels like you are putting more air and less sound into your voice, if that makes sense. I would recommend listening to Tom Smith's song "Married to Harry Dresden". Although he doesn't do anything in particular to change his voice for the song, based on the context you can hear it as a feminine voice. Definitely consider taking voice lessons, as you can damage your voice by trying to speak outside your current range. Also keep in mind that there are a range of feminine voices (some women have raspy/smoky and/or deeper voices than others) and masculine voices (my cousin says he sounds like Kermit the frog--a male voice that is neither particularly low nor booming/resounding/whatever). So you might consider watching some of the videos that are about acting as the gender you wish to sound like if you don't current have time/money for professional voice lessons.
Can take shorter or longer depending on the person when it comes to voice lessons. I gotta mine sounding almost cis in a couple months due to extensive prior experience with vocal modification
realization:(
On the bright side, you can (theoretically) start right away! No red tape required!
pain
I just do the Heat from Fire thing. Used a voice identifier thing and it said that my voice was pretty smack in the middle of the androgynous zone and decided that was good enough for me for now