You can be the prettiest thing that ever walked out of transdom, but if your voice fails to emulate your physical features then you will be clocked.
Some girls are fine not wanting to train their voices and they are fine with getting clocked. However, I really had no desire to get clocked everytime I opened my mouth. So I started to research the topic of voice even before I started to think about transitioning.
At first, i thought this could only be achieved through some expensive operation where a doctor would re position your voice box. Now, some doctors do this line of work, but i really do not recommend it. I seen too many girls end up talking like Mickey Mouse.
And if the voice pitch is fixed to a higher pitch, that is still only 10% of the way there...you still have SO many more factors to work on such as resonance, reflection, melodic patterns, etc. Surgery does not fix that.
I tried "Finding your feminine voice" by Andrea James but it really did not do anything for me. Now, I know some girls that the DVD really helped them. But, for me, it did very little.
So I started to dive back into the research. Based on what I found, this is what I did...and hopefully it can help you too.
1. I downloaded a spectograph. This free download will measure the frequency pitch of your voice. For example, a typical man's voice is around 100-170 or so. A female range is around 200-250. I practiced until I at least got the pitch somewhat in working order.
2. I bought a 15 dollar digital recorder from Target and used that to really hear what I sound like. A digital recorder is painfully honest because it records what you really sound like versus what you think you sound like.
3. Then to really tie my voice into a nice bow I downloaded Kathe Perez's CDs. If you do not know who Kathe Perez is, she is one of the better TG voice coaches in the US. Seriously, youtube TGvoice and you will see some awesome results.
I had the awesome opportunity to be interviewed by Kathe last week. Here are the videos in three parts. I do apologize for the voice being out of synch. Kathe had to use a program on skype to record the session and a side effect is the synchness.
Video one:
Video two:
Video three
I have never had to worry about this... although I always thought my voice was masculine, everyone else, on the phone, walking by, etc just thought of me as a female. Even before I knew I was transsexual, everyone said I looked like a girl... they constantly got into fights over what gender I was exactly...
ReplyDeletekinda funny now that I look back on it...