Your voice is an important part of your image as a trans woman or crossdresser. Even if you rarely go out in public as a woman, there will be times when you’ll need to speak to someone.
You want to be the whole pretty package, right? Having a voice that’s congruent with your image is a big part of that.
In this post, I’ll share 5 common voice feminization mistakes that can hold you back from achieving a natural, “passable” female voice.
1. Speaking Too Deeply
No surprise here, but the deeper your voice, the more masculine it will sound.
How do you know if your voice is too deep? Your best option is to use a frequency tuner to measure the pitch of your voice. Here are the typical frequency ranges for masculine and feminine voices:
- Male voices typically range from 100-150 Hz
- Female voices typically range from 175-250 Hz
The good news is that you can easily measure the pitch of your voice by using a frequency tuner app on your phone. Here are a couple free apps for both iOS and Android:
2. Speaking In Falsetto
Trying to mask a deep voice by speaking in an unnaturally high voice – otherwise known as falsetto – isn’t good, either. Speaking this way doesn’t make you sound like a woman, it makes you sound like Minnie Mouse.
While you do want to raise the pitch of your voice, you never want to go too high. Again, a frequency tuner is invaluable for helping you find your correct range.
3. Whispering
If you are self conscious about your voice, you may try to compensate by speaking more softly.
However, lowering the volume of your voice doesn’t make you sound more feminine, it just makes it impossible to hear you.
4. Upswinging Your Sentences
Women naturally have more “melodic intonation” to their voices. In other words, they are more animated when they speak.
Some crossdressers and transgender women make the mistake of trying to imitate this by “upswinging” their voices at the end of every sentence.
Upswinging your voice tends to make each sentence sound like a question. The result is that you sound like a stereotypical Valley Girl, which is probably not the type of woman you want to emulate.
5. Pinching Your Voice
One of the reasons that men have deeper, richer voices than women is because they have a larger “throat space.”
If you try to compensate for your deeper voice by constricting your throat, the result will sound pinched. Think Pee Wee Herman or Kermit the Frog. Again, this is something you will want to avoid.
Avoiding these mistakes is the first step towards achieving a passable feminine voice
It’s easy to go wrong in your attempts to feminize your voice. The good news is that you CAN achieve a passable feminine voice with the right tools and strategy.
That’s why I’m so excited to share my new course, Vocal Feminization for Beginners: 30 Day Transformation!
Taught by opera singer and vocal coach Lera Sonzogni, this easy-to-follow program will teach you the basics of achieving a feminine voice in just 30 days.
Learn more about Vocal Feminization for Beginners here!
Love,
Lucille
P.S. Before you go, be sure to take my voice feminization poll below. I’d love to know how important this issue is for you, along with your thoughts on the topic!
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So:
I just gotta stick in my oar and wave it around. I did have a voice therapist, which was very gratifying. She eventually said I was pretty ok.
Recent events have me (and most of us) staying alone for days at a time, which I find I actually love! That has produced a few interesting results:
I have lost a bit of connection to gender. While I still consider myself a woman, it doesn’t enter my consciousness much, seems less important. So some of my feminine ways are altering, becoming more androgynous. It doesn’t help that I am doing more nerdy things, such as guys are more likely to do.
The voice follows. I have a harder time remembering to speak more femininely in my few social situations. Although the influence to talk like a girl still exists, there are lapses which give me away (more or less) sometimes.
Beware, lassies.
A concurrence. Please pay attention to those who say avoid voice surgery. There are too many instances of irreparable damage.
Best wishes, stay safe, and be girly (said in a feminine voice, of course).
Joan
p.s. if drag stands for (as some suggest) Dress Like A Girl, can you abbreviate Talk Like A Girl as tlag? Maybe not; it’s awkward. Oh, well…
More.
It really helps to record yourself, with a decent mike, and play back on a decent sound system. Tells a lot. Like where to improve. Kinda like videoing yourself when walking or other things, especially from behind.
Also, read aloud. If it gets tiring when trying to achieve the right sound, just do every other paragraph. It’s interesting to read male dialog in a woman’s voice!
Sing. Any old way, or imitate a role model. And, if you sing poorly in public, maybe people will stay far enough away to not notice your image imperfections!
I am never sure if, when I get ma’amed they are buying my presentation, or just being gracious and polite. Either way, I accept it with gratitude.
Joan
I have to comment regarding the free programs. Usually, this means “free with ads”, which I find extremely annoying.
Perhaps I downloaded one bad program; in that case, the ads kept popping up, and made it almost impossible to conduct business over the phone. Most of the ads were irrelevant anyway, e.g. “finish high school”. (I have a Master’s Degree.)
Usually, the free programs are are accompanied by a similar program that one has to pay for. I always opt for this; it’s worth $5 or $10 not to put up with the ads!
I forget the name, since my phone’s not handy, but I have an Android app with no adds. Simple and effective, does the job. So keep looking around. Good luck. Joan
Hi Laura
Thank You for Your reply.
I checked my phone (I have a phone, but no service – works for me). The tuner is an Android app called “Fine Chromatic Tuner”, free from Google Play Store. It’s as simple as it sounds, just a musical instrument tuner. Shows the note and frequency. Shows me what a tough time I have reaching concert A. No frills and no ads. Maybe I’ll look into something fancier, but this works, and your horror stories give me pause.
Thanks again, and keep pitching (I think the pun is intended)
Joan
Hi, Joan,
At the time that I was getting an avalanche of ads, I had downloaded 3 “free” programs. I couldn’t figure out which one of the programs (or 2, or perhaps all 3 :)) was responsible, so I deleted them all. I found a paid version of one of the apps for $9.99, and I regarded the $9.99 as a small price to pay to rid myself of the problem. 🙂
Incidentally, Google did offer to make me ad free for $.99 per month. Obviously, $.99 isn’t much, but, IMO, paying $9.99 once was a better option. 🙂
Out of my own curiosity, I brought up detunerlite, the program suggested by Lucille. It doesn’t come in a paid version, but there is one other program, gstrings, that comes in both a free and a paid version ($8.99). Of the other choices, about 90% are “free”; only a few charge. (I’ll stick to the ones that charge, thank you. :))
I’d like to suggest a better app, at least for Android Voice Tools is free, simple, and it actively let’s you practice by providing practice sentences and showing you where your putting your voice in relation to the femail voice
Kathe Perez is great (though her voice bugs me for some reason), but my progress really picked up after starting with the Christella VoiceUp app. The technique is very different and Christella has you focus on the important stuff right from the beginning. Kathe is great if you want the voice therapist approach, she’s great at that. Kristella isn’t for achieving the perfect female voice, but she’s all about getting reasonable progress quickly.
Fortunately, growing up with several women and few men gave me a more melodic voice to start with and when I speak I try to mimic women I’ve known or admire. Plus, a lot of pretty girls try to get one trick, or unique thing in their voice. A sound, a phrase, something to make her stand out from other women. That’s worth working on as well. Then get good at laughing (hard when it’s not a fake laugh) and shouting (easy, really) in a female voice and you can pretty much relax and pass 85% of the time from there.
I highly recommend taking lessons with Kathe Perez. I took lessons with Kathe for several months via Skype and made great progress. She said towards the end that everyone talking to me over the phone will hear a women’s voice. A short time later I stayed at a hotel and the female staff there addressed me as a woman, calling me “ma’am.”
I find that the best way for me is to speak near the top of my natural range and to speak from my throat rather than from my chest. This latter part reduces much of the bass undertones that the male vocal chords naturally produce
Just trying to post a pic of me,,,
You look lovely!!
Hi passing as a woman is something I struggle with but to compensate for that is make every effort to look good,use colours correctly and blend in rather than stick out like a sore thumb and of course how we sound and come across takes priority.
Transitioning in later life bears the scars and ware and tare of a lived in life and being 6ft tall with size 12 shoes does not help but of course theirs solutions and answers to finding the right look.Sadly old habits die hard in how we communicate to others.
I am a post op Transexual and thrive on good advice and positive comments from both cis and Trans females who want to share positivity with you.Sounding good,looking good takes time but practice makes perfect.
I see from your photo that you might have gone to Barbie Scott. I did; she’s good.
Please disregard above. It was for another post and somehow ended up on this one