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You can be very passable in your appearance, but if you speak in a masculine voice you've just outed yourself . . . I'm going to rant: it amazes me how many transsexual women speak in a masculine-sounding voice, even post-ops. They'll spend thousands on hormones, electrolysis, surgery, etc, but won't make the effort to retrain their voices. If you don't mind getting sir'd on the phone, or even in public, go ahead and talk like a man, but if you want to pass as a woman your voice is important. Another reason to speak in a female voice is whether we like it or not, we're all ambassadors for the trans community. People will often base their opinions of us on first impressions. If you speak in a male voice, not only will there be incongruity between your voice and appearance, but it will tend to make people relate to us more as drag queens or crossdressers—an image we need to get away from. Any male voice can be retrained. Don't be discouraged if you're starting with a baritone! For proof that your voice can be changed try talking in falsetto. Obviously, it sounds silly and I don't recommend talking in falsetto, but it shows even the deepest can be raised. Just like your walk, you're unlearning years of doing something in a masculine way. You're retraining your throat muscles. It was two-and-half months before I started getting ma'am on the phone and it may take a year, or more, before your voice sounds good in all situations, like yelling. Will hormones make your voice higher? Unless you started HRT at the onset of, or early, puberty before your voice changed, hormones will have no effect on pitch (though estrogen will tend to soften the voice). What about vocal surgery? That's an option and can take the worry out of whether you'll get clocked (read) when you speak. I know three trans women who've had vocal surgery. Two sounded good and one didn't, she sounded raspy (I guess two out of three ain't bad). As with most surgery, the outcome of voice surgery isn't certain. Explore your options and educate yourself about vocal surgery before deciding to have it. However, if you don't want surgery some voice training is usually required.
These lessons are a combination of my own techniques, a session with a professional voice coach and taking singing lessons. I have eight years of radio broadcast experience, sang in a rock band and in an all-women choir [ stealth ]. If you have singing, radio broadcast, or character voice experience these techniques should be easy for you. Recording and playing back your voice is essential! There are many nuances that make up the female voice and you can only hear them if you play your voice back. When a person hears his, or her, voice played back for the first time they're usually surprised at how different it sounds, because it's resonating in your head and will sound different from what others hear. Also recommended is recording your phone calls, either with your computer or a cassette recorder. They will be invaluable to your learning process. The phone is an important test since the person you're speaking to has no visual clues about your gender. There are inexpensive devices you can buy at Radio Shack, and other electronics stores, that plug into your phone and a cassette recorder and are activated when the phone receiver is lifted. Check with your local laws. In some states (USA) it's illegal to record a phone conversation without the other person's knowledge. Warm ups Actors are taught warm-ups to get them ready to read scripts and they are applicable to learning a female voice, such as saying the vowels (a-e-i-o-u) and over-emphasizing them by making exaggerated mouth movements. This will help relax your mouth and jaw muscles and achieve the clear enunciation and modulation of the female voice. Pitch The main difference between a male and female voice is pitch. Don't believe anyone who says pitch isn't important! Pitch should be the technique you work on the most! Have your recording device ready before you begin. Males have deeper voices due to longer and thicker vocal cords. It's like the difference between a flute and an oboe. If you picture your vocal cords as a pipe (diagram on left) pipe B will make a higher pitched sound than pipe A, since pipe B is shorter. This is what you want to accomplish with your throat by tightening your vocal cords. You want to move the resonance out of your chest and lower throat and up into your nasal passages and head. Try this: place your index finger just above your Adam's apple and your middle finger just below it. Now speak in your normal voice. You should feel vibration under both your fingers. Now tighten your throat, raise your pitch and try to make your voice resonate from just your upper throat. You should now feel vibration mainly under your index finger. Don't be discouraged if your pitch doesn't sound natural at first—it'll rise over time with practice. I recommend two techniques to raise your pitch: first is emitting an audible sigh—like a big yawn—in the highest pitch you can go without breaking into falsetto. In other words, take a breath and say "Haaaa" in as high a pitch as you can without breaking into falsetto. This technique is taught to singers. The second is deliberately going into falsetto and sliding down into a pitch that feels comfortable. If your voice cracks or breaks that's OK -- your throat isn't accustomed to using the upper vocal cords exclusively. Now playback your recording. Sounds horrible, doesn't it? That's OK! You have to start somewhere. Could you learn to play the piano in one lesson? Breathiness Marilyn Monroe (bless her soul) had the classic sexy, breathy voice . Breathiness begins by whispering. In other words, pretend you're whispering something into your best girlfriend's ear. You may be thinking, "No one will hear me if I whisper all the time!" That might be true in group situations or when speaking in front of an audience, but one-on-one you can speak with enough volume and still keep a whispering quality. Over time your volume will increase. People are used to women having softer voices. Don't over do it though, talking with too much breathiness can make you sound like a drag queen! When I was developing my voice and talking on the phone sometimes people would ask if I'd just woken up. I didn't have the right balance of breathiness compared to the other components. In the beginning it's OK to over-do the techniques. You may think you sound funny -- ignore that and keep practicing. Enunciation Men tend to slur words and not speak as clearly as women; probably due to having louder voices, so they don't have to enunciate as clearly. For example, a man would say,"Gonna go-da Tom's house 'n' watch the game." Whereas a woman would say, "I'm going to visit Mary. We're going to do each other's hair." A good way to learn to enunciate is to read something and over e-nun-ci-ate each word. This will sound overdone, but you're breaking the male pattern of slurring words. Find your pitch and read a few paragraphs from your reading material and o-ver e-nun-ci-ate ev-er-y word.
Phrasing and Modulation Men tend to speak in a flat-footed or monotone way, not varying their tone much, saying as much as they can in one breath. Women modulate, or vary their tone, more. In other words, their pitch will go up and down during a sentence. For example, a woman would say: "Oh, my dear [pitch up]. How are you-u?" [pitch down]. Men have larger lungs and can speak longer without taking a breath, whereas women have less breath capacity and tend to take more breathes when speaking. A way to practice this is to read something and every time you see a comma, take a breath. Try it with the following sentence, taking a short breath at every comma: "I went to the store and bought lipstick, eye shadow, blush, and mascara." Pronunciation Men and women pronounce words differently. The main differences are women often pronounce one syllable words as two and sometimes their voices go up at the end of sentences, like when asking a question. For example, a man would say: "I'm going out the back door," whereas a woman would say: "I'm going out the back door-or." The classic female greeting of "hi-eee!" is another example. A good way of practicing this is to speak in a Southern accent. If you saw the movie Tootsie (If you haven't, I recommend it as Dustin Hoffman did a good job of imitating a woman's voice), you may remember when Mr. Hoffman was Tootsie she spoke with a Southern accent and didn't when he was a man. That's because a Southern accent is one of the easiest to speak in a feminine voice. People from the South pronounce one syllable words as two. For example, "bray-yed" instead of "bread." And the Southern drawl gives your voice a natural feminine quality. If you don't know how to do a Southern accent rent a movie with a female lead who speaks with a Southern accent (for example, Fried Green Tomatoes) and imitate her. Women hiss! Not like a snake! When women talk they make a hissing sound when they say words with the letter 'S' in them. You can do this by putting your tongue at the roof of your mouth just behind your front teeth. It's like talking with a lisp.
Those are the basic mechanics of a female voice! Keep recording and critiquing your voice. The worst time to practice is in the morning after you've just gotten up. Your throat muscles are relaxed and this tends to put your resonance into the lower vocal cords and chest. A good time to practice is when you're excited about something, after a good day. Your voice sounds naturally livelier when you're enthusiastic.
Spend at least 10-15 minutes a day practicing by recording, listening to and critiquing your voice. Don't just listen to your voice (without recording) and think you'll sound fine. You'll miss things. Listening to how others hear you is essential. Sometimes it boils down to just one phrase, or word, that needs improvement. It's exciting to hear a woman's voice and knowing it's you! |