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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I have tried to change my voice but it is naturally deep so I have a lot of work to do. I know that the pitch is very important but so is ‘what’ you say. The more I practice the better it will become. Any tips are useful as we all have to do this.
I have already achieved a female voice I started voice training in 2005 and extensively in 2011 and used it full time in 2012 and ever séance I always bean female range and if I try to go back male it really strains my voice and makes it sore so I try not to do it at all so I use my female voice when I talk.
I haven’t even gotten it yet, but the preview has already made a very positive difference.
I realised pretty early on, when dressing out of the closet, that meeting normal people outside of LGBT circles, and speaking; was going to be a dead give away, no matter how pretty, or convincing I looked. For this reason; I started practising and experimenting with my voice.
My first trials, were while sitting on the loo, with a little time to kill! lol I’d say common phrases and try to pick holes in the voice. If it didn’t convince me; I’d tweak it in different ways, to see what made it seem more female or male. Other good starter experiments, were, mimicking what I felt were very desirable female sound bites (like a phrase from a celebrity, an advert, or something delicious sounding, that I heard someone say on TV or in a song, or even in real life; and then changing the different parameters a little at a time, to see what would happen.
I think an early discovery or should I say ‘thing that I noticed’, was that some, certainly effeminate women, actually had surprisingly low pitched voices, and that meant there was good potential to develop a workable, long term, heavy use voice. Up until that point, it had been quite hard work doing a female voice, and making it sound natural over long(er) periods of use. Once I realised it was quite possible…I started listening to more lower pitched ‘hot’ women, mainly to learn their style of intonation in speech. Everyone has their own speaking style, but a lot can learnt from ‘born’ women, who are pitched approximately around the pitches you’re going to adopt.
Once down that path; you start to notice what minimal changes are required to your throat components, and can then start to sound like a girl, even when very relaxed.
Another exercise I did in my later stages of voice training, was to pick traditionally male voiced songs (particularly ones that I loved and knew well how to sing or emulate), and then would re-sing them in a female voice, and retry the passages that I felt did not pass as a female vocalist. I found that was a nice exercise for the car, when driving to a night out. It would help get my vocal mindset in place, and also served as a warm-up exercise for the throat and also confidence. Obviously, the voices used in singing, are different to normal speech, but as an exercise, and for confidence to push the envelope, and truly own my voice; it was both useful, and also entertaining! (and I now, sometimes even have a go at female voiced karaoke – not that I claim to be any sort of amazing singer, but given how bad some people are…it can come across rather well!). x
Hi
Thanks for the topic. The voice problem is one of my biggest concerns when I go out. I have taken voice lessons from a professional voice teacher so I rely on her teachings to get me though. I usually start my day out with a 1/2 hour voice practice. I have a CD of practice exercises that my voice teacher gave me so I tune up on those before I hit the pavement, often while I am driving.
I also have to get my head together and convince mysellf that “i am a woman” right now and I am going to be the best woman I can be.
If I start out with a female mind set “that I am a woman” then the practice is easier, less forced and flows much more naturally.
Finally I just have to relax and be myself. I will give it my best shot and if people dont llike it, then that’s too damn bad. I am who I am and I am proud of who I am. I didn’t ask for this transgender assignement but it was given to me, I guess because it was felt that I could handle it, So I try very hard to just be the best I can be, I try not to stand out or be obnoxious, pushy or arrogant when I am out. I try to respect other people and I expect to be treated with respect. If I am not, I may take a page from my lesbian friends page book, and find out why the hell not.
Anyway, hope that helps someone!
Take care
Heather
Still working on my voice, but it will take work. In the past I did sing Bass for awhile, or at least tried to….
I agree with Cassandra, practice is important. Most of the time, when I’m going out, I’m on travel. While in the car I tune to radio stations with female dj’s or newscasters and repeat their sentences out loud as I drive. Be careful,though, as many female broadcasters have strong, masculine-ish voices. But broadcaster are also trained to over enunciate, which I find helpful.
I learned most of Lucille’s list of 5 mistakes through experiences. The big on for me was speaking too softly. When you are already uncomfortable speaking, having to repeat yourself makes it all the more stressful. Just like anyone else, we convey our self confidence in our voices (or lack of). I used a piano to find my natural pitch, and then picked one about 7 notes (including the black keys) higher. I found it easier to focus only on pitch for a while before working the other aspects. Most of my adventures are shopping or dining, and almost always young women are the staff with whom I need to communicate. Since working on speaking clearly, I’ve never had a problem (not even an odd look), although I’m quite sure I have never ‘fooled’ any of them. I think they just want to do their job and by my speaking clearly, it helps them do that.
I think I’ve more or less got the voice itself down, I just need more practice using it conversationally. I remember reading something once about… it was like, doing a Mickey Mouse voice but then pitching that down. I’ve done a bunch of recordings of myself and I think it’s a good fit for me. Though sometimes if I’m out and just going through a drive-through or something, I’ll just pitch my normal voice up a bit. The result is androgynous at best but most people aren’t really paying any attention in situations like those.