Sound Like Your True Gender!
To modify your speaking voice to sound more like your true gender the following techniques may be helpful for you:
Singing: Sing along to you favorite male or female singer that has a higher pitch. Sing the musical scale (do-re-me). This exercise stretches your pitch range. Start with Do-Re-Me-Fa-So-La-Ti-Do when you go up the scale and start speaking in the “me or fa” sound to raise your pitch.
Keep the vocal cords (vocal folds) flexible. When air passes between the vocal cords your voice is perceived as breathy. The space between the vocal cords is called the glottis. When we whisper or producing an sound that does not have a voice (p, h, t, b, s, sh). When the glottis is closed, we make sounds by vibrating the vocal cords. Compare the /s/ and /z/ sounds. The /s/ is voiceless and the /z/ is voiced. If you put your finger on the vocal cords (i.e. voice box) you can hear the vibration when you make the /z/ sound. Female voices are make with a soft voice or partially opened vocal cords for all sounds.
The feminine voice has an upward intonation and pitch when they want to emphasize a certain point; whereas, masculine voices get louder but keep their pitch in a limited range when they want to emphasize what they want to say. Feminine speech is slower than males and they are very particular in their articulation of all the sounds they produce. They do not mumble or leave the endings off of words as men usually do. Their speech is precise and clearer than males. When speaking, the female’s lips are in a ‘Mona Lisa’ smile, whereas, males do not usually smile when they are communicating.
Women start and end their sentences gently and slower than males. Females start off sentences with easier speech sounds whereas males usually use a hard, forced sound on the first syllable of words (heavy coming together of the vocal cords) when they start to speak. Men speak from their chests and you can feel the vibration in the chest when they speak. Women speak from the front of the mouth or head resonance. The vibration is felt in the front of the face and nasal areas. To speak in a louder female voice, speak from the front of your face!
Women’s conversation is usually about their feelings and emotions and how they are perceived by the other conversational participant, whereas men communicate to give their opinion, or how to fix whatever problem you are talking about.
Tape record samples of your voice when you first start to train your voice and then listen to yourself again in a few weeks. Read aloud in a female voice. Read a newspaper, a book, the Bible, anything. Say nursery rhymes, the Pledge of Allegiance, etc. in your female voice for practice. A good passage to practice is the following one which has every sound made in American English pronunciation. Check on the internet for “The Grandfather Passage” or the “Rainbow Passage” for speech therapy.
For more information on voice modification for the transgender population, email me at: marc@transgendervoicetherapy.com. For voice therapy modification in person when in Ft. Lauderdale or Palm Beach, FL call: 954-778-8876. Tele-therapy by phone or online on the internet can be arranged.
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Category: Transgender How To
About the Author (Author Profile)
Marc Mitnick, MS, CCC-SLP, Board certified and licensed Speech, Language and Voice Pathologist, Director, Your Speech Therapist, Inc.Subscribe
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