Experience with professional voice training

[butterflydreams]

...for trans feminine people.

I realized in talking about it therapy today that my voice is the one thing that's really hurting me right now. It's causing me the most distress. It's causing me the most doubts. It's the biggest thing holding my self esteem back in transition. So much distress :(

At first I thought, "why pay someone for this? Can't I just watch YouTube videos and follow what they do? Or make videos or recordings myself and work on it that way?" But I feel the progress with all that has slowed.

Has anyone ever done any professional voice training especially for voice feminization? Did it help? Is there something else I can try that I don't know about? Is it all in my head? Can I not hear how much better my voice is already in the same way I still mostly see a guy in photos?

[MoraDollie]

Voice training is like learning to play an instrument. Practice! Learn singing scales (tons of tutorials on youtube) or sol-fedge (Again, tons of tutorials on youtube). Gradually push. If it hurts, you're doing it wrong (likely need more air to hit the notes). I DO NOT recommend listening to yourself, cause a lot of people get discouraged (and/or are like "O_o I sound like that ????"). Learning to manipulative your voice takes lots of practice and dedication. What can make it more fun/less tedious than just doing scales is singing songs!

[Sockstealingnome]

I don't have any experience with this but I have heard of throat surgery where they go in and tighten your vocal chords to produce a higher pitch but that seems more like a last resort.

[butterflydreams]

Hmm, I'm really not a fan of singing. Does singing along in the car work? There are definitely some songs I can sing along with that I feel put my voice exactly where I want it to be, but it's hard to speak that way.

[Heart]

I wish I had any experience to offer. My guess though would be that the more you sing in a certain register, the easier it will be eventually to translate that into talking in that register. Kind of like how you can use weights to exercise certain muscles and strengthen them, which would make it easier to learn gymnastics at some point in the future. Having all the right muscles doesn't mean you can just do gymnastics, but it helps in the learning process. So being able to sing in the right register doesn't mean you should expect to be able to talk that way right away, but it does mean you would be capable of it if you worked hard at it! :D

Or at least, that's the best I can logic it out... I tried :P

[binary suns]

I haven't yet looked into it. And as such I am a little bit hesitant on what to expect. I am concerned of the possibility to damage my voice by training it wrong, I have not done any research on it, and kind of half expect that I'll be working with a professional of some kind, specifically to guide me as I train my voice.

I also wonder if there is something in our accents. I suspect that there are accents that are more common in women, and accents more common in men, basically that working on how we shape our mouths when we speak can make a large difference by itself in our apparent gender, not only in the way we form our words, but also in the inflections we use while speaking, and additionally in other ways in which mouth movement affects our face and speech patterns. I do not know for sure anything about this though, It is a thought I am holding onto for now, until I have effort available to look into it.

I suspect that working with a singer would be very beneficial. Even if you do not like singing, maybe sitting down once a week with a singer and talking to them about their knowledge on reaching consistency in vocal sound. Additionally, they would have experience with affecting their pitch. I am sure a lot of singers have to work to increase their range of pitch, and so they could have advice on what is dangerous when doing that and what is effective.

[Sockstealingnome]

There are some people whose speaking and singing voices are completely different. I think everyone has a natural range that feels most comfortable so even if you were to work with a vocal coach to increase that range or learn how to hit it consistently, it's still going to be something you'll have to consciously do for the rest of your life.

[Gentle Giant]

I don't know if this would help, but maybe you could try imitating other females (cis or trans) that you like the sound of and are close in your vocal range? And I mean speaking not singing.

[butterflydreams]

[...] it's still going to be something you'll have to consciously do for the rest of your life.

No I know this. But surprisingly, I've been pushing it up subtly for years. I found some old, old movies my friends and I made 10 years ago in high school. I don't think I could talk like that again if I tried. I mean, I'm sure I could, but I'd have to work at it for a bit. It kind of becomes a habit I guess. Like an accent.

I don't know if this would help, but maybe you could try imitating other females (cis or trans) that you like the sound of and are close in your vocal range? And I mean speaking not singing.

I think that helps with things like cadence and style. My friend says I always "sound like a chick" when I pick up the phone when she calls. I dunno. Maybe that's enough? Maybe it'll slowly keep improving over time? Maybe it's not as bad as I'm thinking it is.

[Homer]

I strongly agree with Kumo on the "don't listen to yourself" bit. No idea what you sound like at the moment but it's just plain weird to listen to yourself.

Would an acting school be an option? They teach people to use their voice in various ways to "get their point across", so maybe that could be helpful. Or maybe there are voice teaching courses in general, like for people who aim to work at a radio station.

[Gentle Giant]

it's not as bad as you're thinking it is. You sound good and on the right track in the videos you've made. It will improve over time the more you get comfortable with it. If your friend thinks you sound like a chick on the phone, that is good!

[Sockstealingnome]

I strongly agree with Kumo on the "don't listen to yourself" bit. No idea what you sound like at the moment but it's just plain weird to listen to yourself.

Would an acting school be an option? They teach people to use their voice in various ways to "get their point across", so maybe that could be helpful. Or maybe there are voice teaching courses in general, like for people who aim to work at a radio station.

Ditto. I think I sound like a child when I hear recordings of myself.

I think acting school is more about body language and voice projection. If an actor wants to change the way they speak, they work with a voice coach or speech therapist.

[Heart]

Maybe it's not as bad as I'm thinking it is.

It almost never is ;)

[butterflydreams]

I strongly agree with Kumo on the "don't listen to yourself" bit. No idea what you sound like at the moment but it's just plain weird to listen to yourself.

Well, not listening to my voice is definitely something I can do. Though when making some videos recently (with the tertiary intention of working on my voice) I have to say, I didn't mind listening to it. I definitely didn't feel the same cringing that I do when listening to older recordings.

Maybe it's not as bad as I'm thinking it is.

It almost never is ;)

A lot of my questioning about this came up because I was scared I wasn't passing. I'd gotten a slew of recent misgenderings, and I was looking for anything to blame it on, and voice came out on top. Maybe that's not fair though. Maybe those are genuine, honest mistakes. Happens to cis people all the time. I think my voice has improved a lot already.

[Heart]

*hugs*

Remember that you are subjective too; we all have confirmation bias. If you think that you're getting misgendered more than usual right now, then you're naturally going to pick up much more than usual on each and every misgendering event and remember them more than usual. The only way you can know if you're actually being misgendered more than usual is to do a statistical analysis, and for that you would need some objective measurement tool to count the misgenderings... And even if you found statistical significance in a raise in misgenderings, then I can think of infinite reasons other than your appearance or voice. Like the weather; maybe the summer just makes people think less about pronouns (I don't know about you, but we're having a heat wave where I am and it's boiling my brain...). Or maybe there's a slightly higher workload for all of you (so they're more stressed and less brain space is available for gender stuff), or a slightly lower workload (so they feel they can turn their brains off a bit more than usual). Or maybe the moon is full. Who knows?

And, hey. If it makes you feel better to think about it this way: you're being misgendered WAY less now than you were a year ago. Or two years ago, pre-any kind of transition. It's slow progress, but it's still pretty cool.

Also, yay for liking your voice!! That's so amazing :D I guess this means I can look forward to more roadtrips with Hadley? ;)

[Rojatta]

I don't have personal experience with voice feminization but I'm starting my grad career in speech therapy and I've written a couple papers on transgender voice/communication. Evidence-based methods for feminizing the voice basically involve changing resonance through lip shape and tongue placement along with changing pitch. A speech therapist also works on nonverbal communication and things like inflection, word choice, etc. There's a lot of primary literature out there if you like reading articles. Results vary of course depending on your individual characteristics. One study I read for reported that people were being misgendered less in person, but still being misgendered sometimes on the phone. The nice thing about working with a professional is that they can teach you techniques to improve your vocal stamina and keep from damaging your voice during treatment.

If you happen to be near a school with a grad program in speech, they might have a transgender communication group (local pride organizations might offer such a group too) or if you could see about getting services from the graduate clinicians in their clinic (might be cheaper than a regular SLP and also good experience for the student since it's still kind of a niche treatment area). I'm also a big fan of videotaping for learning new skills...I started taping all my training sessions with my dog last year and it's allowed for HUGE improvement in our performance because I can see all the subtle things that aren't obvious in the moment and even watch in slow motion for extra detail :)

[MoraDollie]

I DO NOT recommend throat surgery. There's a lot of natural risks with surgery, even for "minor" operations, including the risk of death. Even if after 6 months of vocal training (and you still hate it) and counseling hasn't suggested anything to help yourself (you need to do the exercises they give you) then maybe go for surgery. Otherwise, I really don't recommend such an invasive production for vocal pitch.