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For those who still have masculine voice. What you think about feminizing your voice online?
I search for friends to go into feminity online at least for short expierience of being a girl at least online and only with voice.
Writte me.
maria_ko25(at)yahoo.com
Voice Feminization, The Most Important Thing...
In that first two or three seconds when you meet someone, the single most important issue is ones' voice. I have been harping on this for years and sometimes I think that people just tune such talk out.
I used to have a voice that would crack pavement, but over two or three years it greatly changed. In my case surgery was not necessary. I did spend about $180 on three sessions with a voice coach, and it was worth every nickle.
Gwen
hi
Yes it take time to have real femminin voice.
This software thing is only sort term expirience, maybe to give you more strenght to continue with real training.
Voice: from the dark ages
I'm from the dark ages, I'm afraid, and the only speech therapist I ever met (in 1980) said the differences between male and female-identified speech were, in order of increasing importance:
1. basic pitch
2. range of pitch during speech
3. fricatives and sibilants (basically, use of f-sounds and s-sounds)
4. vocabulary, volume and style.
In other words, most important, (in her opinion - and I have to admit, there wasn't much research back then, though she dug up a few well-researched articles) most important was the style of speech - the use of sounds that, in the extremes would be considered an effeminate lisp or a flat monotone, and a choice of words and presentation that was stereotypically feminine or masculine.
I dunno if it all was correct, really, but I did listen to a LOT of people at the time, with an ear to those factors, and easily 75% followed most of these parameters in being "identifiably" male or female.
I practiced the fricatives and sibilants thing for a week or two and concluded it was a matter of "less is more," with a barely-perceptable shift to drawing out ss's and ff's.
I had a friend (moved away, didn't lose her) who was obsessive about the varying pitch thing; I thought she sounded crazy (as in demented and kinda scary) most of the time, with her emotional meaning obscured by an almost random musicality in her speech.
Another friend, a mentor of sorts, who transitioned back in the late 60s, had stereotypical "gay man/fairy" speech patterns, and she passed pretty well, but also sounded a bit comical sometimes, as the contrast between her appearance and voice was a little unexpected.
One other acquaintance believed that whispering was the solution. She always sounded a little insane, too, as she whispered in a near-falsetto and seemed pathologically shy - so afraid she'd be read that in the end, everyone paid her more attention than she could tolerate.
I had great success with just tiny adjustments to the sss and fff sounds and a little tweaking to my vocabulary.
In conclusion, in both my experience and in the few professional journal articles back then, which reported therapy and training for transsexuals and the perceived gender of speakers using these four parameters - all were pretty clear that, except in extremes of basic pitch, the latter three were the most important, and most trainable.
I hope this is any help, and I can answer questions :-)
I must disagree about vocabulary
It is not a major issue, unless you use extreme macho word choices and emphasis, especially these days as women work more in traditionally 'male' professions, the choice of words especially for extremely technical professions may make it seem more 'masculine'.
The style and timbre of speech is what is most important.
I have to agree that pitch is not one should be concentrating on BUT it should not be ignored especially over the phone.
For me voice is always a synthesis of all 4 elements and the weighting of importance of each element is not a consistent thing. As an example, if one has to shout over a distance than pitch matters as by its very nature, the vocal chords lose some of their elasticity and the range is reduced. Fundamental pitch is now front and center and the listener has only pitch and timbre to go by. Also, I always trot out the oddball situation such as for a person who talks in their sleep.
I pass really well, that is just a fact. I worked my way up from a typical baritone to a pretty normal woman's range and have done so for over two decades of consistent usage. Consistency is the key imho.
Pitch may take the longest as it means you have to be disciplined enough to force muscles into an initially very unfamiliar arrangement to adjust it upwards. It may take years before it becomes your default voice instead of something you have to focus on to use. Sadly a lot of us are very impatient for immediate results.
Kim
Vocabulary
I agree with you about vocabulary, in general. People speak very much alike, gender aside. My therapist put it kinda like this: 'You can use more descriptives, and a variety of them, as men generally use fewer and less often.'
But she also said that there were patterns of language usage that were very different, males from females, and maybe that's different nowadays, but she could point out many, many examples. Colors - men tended to use few basic color words and then 'dark, light, or whatever' modifiers. Women used many more exact color terms, often related to experience (with clothing and cosmetics, etc.) Same for textures, tastes, fashions, relationships, music - women had a wider vocabulary related to cultural exposures and license to use such terms.
Modifiers, such as superlatives and 'cute' words ("exquisite" "adorable") were also mentioned as typical 'feminine' language identifiers.
Which goes directly to what you said about style of speech :-)
My therapist said that I shouldn't try to change my basic pitch, and that it was in the low end of female-normal, while also being in the high-middle of male normal, so I never did. She said base-pitch change was very hard on the vocal cords. Kudos on accomplishing it!
Michelle
Yes base voice change is hard on the vocal chords
I did have the advantage of having sung in school chorus before though so I do have a better sense of voice. That said, it is still not necessarily a cake walk. Some people can switch quickly but most can't I think. The focus needed to maintain a voice initially can be distracting and make it harder for you to do your job or act naturally at times as you are focusing on something most people would consider automatic. At times my neck muscles would tense up unnecessarily due to the tension of focusing on the change.
However, it was a worthwhile investment for me as I wanted to be able to sing again, this time at least as a contralto and can reasonably manage that now though that too has been a lot of work too as when you raise pitch it can sometimes lead to loss of power as you are devoting all your focus to maintaining pitch because there is a lack of trust in what your fundamental pitch is and until I had both I could not really sing well.
It is an ever evolving process.
Kim
Singing at a higher pitch
See, Kimmie, I have no problem at all singing just as well in a higher pitch than my usual one. I can't hold a note in a bucket, in either! :-)
*groan*
It is soooo much like that old joke of being able to play the violin after surgery.
Kim