Tara's Tips - #2
How to Develop a Female Voice
You can be very passable in your appearance, but if you speak in a masculine voice you've just made yourself into a guy in drag. It amazes me how many transsexuals still speak in a masculine-sounding voice, even post-ops. They'll spend thousands of dollars on hormones, electrolysis, surgery, clothes, etc., but won't make the effort to re-train their voices. Just about any male voice can be re-trained to sound feminine, so don't be discouraged if you're starting out with a baritone. Just like your walk, you're unlearning years of doing something in a masculine way. You're re-training your throat muscles, so give yourself time. It took me two and one-half months before I started getting "yes, ma'am" on the phone. And it may take a year before your throat muscles are completely re-trained.
This tip is a combination of Melanie Phillips' voice lessons, my own session with a professional voice coach and my own techniques. A tape recorder is essential to practice. You can't tell how people are hearing your voice unless you record it. When a person hears his or her voice on a tape recorder for the first time they're usually surprised at how different it sounds. That's because when you hear your own voice it's resonating in your head and will sound different from what others are hearing. I also have a recording device on my telephone so I can record my phone conversations. The phone is an important test since the person to whom you're speaking with has no visual clues about your gender.
There are four main areas that makeup a female voice-- pitch, breathiness,
enunciation and pronunciation. There are also two sub-categories that are just
as important: Phrasing and Modulation and Persona. Just as in
a female walk, when everything is done correctly they combine to
make a convincing sounding female voice.
Pitch
The main difference between a masculine and
feminine voice is the pitch. Males have deeper voices due to longer and thicker vocal
chords. You want to raise your pitch as high as you can without going falsetto. A good way
to find your pitch is by emitting an audible sigh in the highest pitch you can go. You can
raise the pitch of your voice by tightening your vocal cords and resonating from the top
of your throat. You want to keep the resonance out of your chest and lower throat. Place
your index finger just above your Adam's apple and your middle finger just below your
Adam's apple. 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 mostly under your index finger.
Don't be discouraged if your highest pitch doesn't sound feminine to you. Your
pitch will rise over the next several months with practice. Go ahead and do an audible
sigh raising your pitch as high as you can without going falsetto.
Breathiness
Even if your pitch is not that high, you can still create a nice
sounding voice by adding breathiness to it. Many women have low-pitched voices, but what
makes them sound like women is breathiness. When you first start out you want a whispering
quality to your voice. Now you may be thinking "no one will hear me if I whisper all
the time." This may be true in a group situation or when speaking in front of an
audience, but in one-on-one you can speak with enough volume and still keep your
breathiness to be understood. Over time your volume will increase. Women are used to women
having softer voices then men, so they will expect a softer voice. Just speak loud enough
to make yourself understood. Another quality to a woman's voice is a "hissing"
sound when they say words with S's and T's in them. You can do this by putting your tongue
to the roof of your mouth just behind your front teeth. Try putting your tongue in this
position and say, "S's and T's." Sounds feminine, doesn't it? Here's something
that an ex-girlfriend, who sang opera, taught me: Imagine your voice being projected out
the tip of your nose.
Enunciation
Men tend to slur words together when speaking. This is probably due to having louder
voices, so they are heard easier and don't have to enunciate clearly. Women, having
softer voices, enunciate more to make themselves understood. For example, a man would say,
"Going to go to Tom's house 'n' check out the game." Whereas a woman would say,
"I'm going to visit Mary. We're going to do each other's hair." Women speak much
more distinctly and clearly. A good way to learn to enunciate is to read something
and over e-nun-ci-ate each word. This will sound false, but what you're doing is breaking
the male pattern of slurring words. Eventually this will become second nature and you
won't have to think about enunciating each word.
Pronunciation
Men and women pronounce words differently. The main differences are
women pronounce one syllable words as two and their voices go up at the end of sentences.
For example, a man would say, "I'm going out the back door," and a woman would
say, "I'm going out the back door-or." If you saw the movie "Tootsie"
(if you haven't, I recommend you do since Dustin Hoffman did a good job of imitating a
woman's voice) you'll probably remember that when he 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 always pronounce one syllable
words as two and the Southern draw gives your voice a natural feminine quality. Also,
women tend to raise the pitch of their voices at the end of sentences. Like when asking a
question.
Phrasing and Modulation
Men tend to speak in a "flat-footed" or monotone way, saying as much as they
can in one breath and not varying their tone. Women vary their tones when speaking, or
modulate in a "sing-song" way. In other words, the pitch will go up and down
during a sentence. For example, a woman would say, "Oh, my [down] dear [up]. How are
you-u [down]?" Men have larger lungs and can speak longer without taking a breath.
Women have less breath capacity and tend to take more breaths 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." Doesn't that sound more
feminine?
Persona
Persona is one of the most nebulous qualities of not only your voice, but your whole self as a woman. And it is one of the most important. You can have all the aspects of a female-sounding voice, but if you don't have the right persona people will sense something is "not right" about you. Persona is how you wholly project yourself as a woman and is what separates drag queens from women. It is an essence that says: "I am a woman and I am confident and comfortable as a woman." It effects everything you do from your walk, to your voice, to your mannerisms. Some M2F transsexuals have a natural female persona, some have to learn it. The best way that I can describe it is a natural femininity that exudes from every cell in your body. For me, it came from a combination of years of practice and observing women and letting the woman in me fully express herself. It is still an on-going process.
How do you develop this persona? I visualized myself as the woman I
wanted to be and kept re-visualizing this woman until she was second nature to me. If you
see yourself as a woman inside and out, that's how people will perceive and react to you,
whether in person or on the phone. It is especially important on the phone since the
person on the other end has no visual clues about your gender. You're NOT a guy trying to
imitate a woman, you ARE a woman. If you believe this other people will, too. This may
take months of practice, but keep in mind you're un-learning years of being socialized as
a male.
Tara's Transgendered Page
http://members.aol.com/ptholmes/
Tara is a pre-op transsexual living as a full-time
woman. She welcomes your questions and comments.
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