Voice Training Through Singing:
This one’s for the girls
All right, so you want to sound like the girl you are, right? Well, you already do, seeing as your voice sounds like you, and you’re a girl, but most people don’t understand that. I never could find a single, comprehensive guide for vocal feminization that included a step-by-step process (though I never paid for any of those programs either, so they may be there) but I did find some that gave me important information on certain sections and stumbled through the rest myself.
By “stumbled through” I mean that I tried to do everything at once instead of one step at a time, and took a lot longer than I should have to see any results. I also nearly caused serious damage to my voice a few times, at one point losing it entirely for a day. As I’ve thought about the different aspects of what I’ve done though, I was able to easily separate them into steps that build on each other instead of throwing everything into a blender and hoping that what comes out is what you want.
I won’t be adding any before/after clips to this, for privacy reasons as well as lack of a decent sound setup at the moment, but I have been correctly gendered every time I am on the phone or going through a drive-through for the past few months, and I’ve been doing this for about a year. Most of the things I do heavily involve matching the voice of various singers, which I can do easily thanks to nearly a decade of music training. If you have trouble with this, I would recommend using headphones to start with; they make it much easier to tell if you are at least harmonizing well. Eventually your ear will probably get better and you can pay more attention to your voice instead of the singer’s, at which point you can quit using the headphones if you want.
You might also end up getting really good at matching voices, and that’s not even the coolest part. Do you like singing right now, and have some male artists you like to sing along with? You won’t lose that with this! All it will do will make your range increase, and eventually raise your “normal” voice in that range. Here’s a good example of the sort of thing we’re going for (I can’t hit the highest notes yet, but I can hit most!)
Step 0. Self-care – Don’t overdo it!
Before we get started, it’s important to note that going too high before you’re ready (or warmed up), or doing too much too fast can really hurt your voice. I’m trying to get into a more responsible schedule for the last bits of mine, but I tend to do most of my training in the car, which means I end up with days at a time of not doing anything beyond using my feminine speaking voice, followed by 2-3 hours in a single day of nonstop training. Needless to say, that tends to push my voice a bit harder than I like if I’m not careful.
Most people already know what it feels like when you start to lose your voice, and definitely pay attention to those symptoms, but a new one that I noticed after starting this training caught me off guard. Often the first warning sign that I’m pushing too hard is that I start coughing and feeling like I’ve got something stuck in my throat. Nothing’s actually there, but that doesn’t change the fact that the coughing happens. Just be aware of your body, and try to stop if you notice signs of strain. After all, any voice is better than none!
If you do end up pushing things a bit, hot drinks like tea or coffee can do wonders to relax everything again. My personal treatment is freshly brewed black tea with about 2 tablespoons of honey in it. It won’t make everything magically better so you can go right back to it, but it will make it so you have a voice the next day.
Another trick to help with a strained voice, though it may bother you, is to talk as low as you can. Not deep (you don’t need to try singing bass opera parts!), but low and smooth (like you’re pretending to be a guy trying to seduce someone quietly). Do that for a few minutes and it should loosen everything up again, at least enough to get back a normal speaking pitch.
Step 1. Basic Anatomy – Your Apple is your friend
Normally this section would be a boring, basic section with odd pictures that have long names of things we don’t care about. As you’ve probably guessed, I don’t care for that approach much, and I’m also very impatient. So, here’s a quick rundown of what you need to know, and at the end you’ll be able to see just a bit of progress too!
Now I know most of us don’t like our Adam’s apples (me too!), but the technical name for what it covers is the larynx, so I’m going to call it that instead. You can feel where it is, right? Touch it, then swallow. Feel how it moved? Now try doing that without swallowing. Chances are that you can’t right now, but that’s okay! Swallow again, but this time hold your larynx at the highest point, where it feels like it pulls back slightly, then let go when you need to breathe.
Doing that exercise a few times a day will get you to the point that you can move your larynx up at will, which will help out with resonance and tone later on. You may even notice a difference if you try talking with your larynx up instead of relaxed, though it’ll probably be a bit difficult at first. This part took me about two weeks to get right, but since I haven’t met anyone who’s tried the same thing I don’t know if that’s fast or slow. If you want to, feel free to send me some feedback on how long it took you (On any of the sections, for that matter)!
Step 2. The Voice – Raise the Voice, not the Pitch
Now you can move your larynx up and down. Great! But you’re only halfway through the basics right now. Go ahead and try to keep your larynx up for the rest of the training, but if you can’t don’t worry; this part can be done without that.
I’d like to point out here that, while I was trained musically, it was not in singing (I was a tuba player), so some of the terms I’m using are probably not correct in that sense. I’m going to use them anyhow though, because it makes sense to me and I’m pretty stubborn, so just roll with it.
Sing a note in the comfortable part of your range. Doesn’t matter how loud, but hold it for a bit. Feel where the vibration is? I’m going to guess that it’s right around your collarbone, at the base of your neck. That’s called “Chest Voice,” and it’s almost always a masculine thing. This next part is kinda tricky to explain, so bear with me.
Now try to picture your voice as a light or an orb or something that’s in that area. It doesn’t matter what, so long as you do it. Raise that light/orb/whatever up slowly while you hold the tone. The sound will probably shift up as you do; that’s fine. The important thing is to note the different feeling of where the vibration is. As it reaches the halfway point in your throat you might feel a sudden change. That change over is what I call the “Throat Voice” and is probably where your voice will want to go for a while during training.
Once you get past Throat Voice and visualize the light/orb/whatever entering your mouth you’re officially using “Head Voice,” a.k.a. where most women talk from. Congrats! Now go even higher, till you have to pull your larynx back almost to where it goes when you swallow. You probably sound like a really bad Mickey Mouse or chipmunk now, but that’s normal. This is the upper range of your voice, what I call the “Falsetto.” Once you’ve got the hang of moving between these (and moving your larynx up during them as well) you can move on. I think this part took me about six weeks to really get down.
Step 3. First Steps – a.k.a. Why I do this in the car
This is where we begin the real training! Quick question: Do you like My Little Pony? If so, that makes this step a lot easier. If not, then you’ll have to use “chipmunk” songs or go look up “nightcore” on Youtube and find some songs you like. Actually, I’d do that last one anyhow, especially if you find some that the originals feature a male singer.
Either way, the point of this step is to find some songs you like that force you to use that “falsetto” range you discovered last step. At first you won’t be able to do much in that range that doesn’t sound like a squeaky wheel that somehow learned to talk, but as you keep at it you’ll start to get a little more flexibility up there. Remember though, you’re not going for a “good” sound right now; you’re trying to match the song as best you can.
There really isn’t too much else to this step. You just have to keep at it till you are able to match the songs, or at the very least are able to move around the range without sounding like a Disney character anymore. I use songs from MLP and some nightcore songs as well for this, in particular any songs that have multiple singers to maximize the flexibility and control (yup, I’m still working on this part a bit, but I reached what I’m saying here in about two months). Once you are happy, onto the next step!
Step 4. Pitch – Removing the Turtle Shell
You know that part in the original Dragon Ball anime where Master Roshi had Goku doing a bunch of weird tasks while wearing that really heavy turtle shell? Then he got to take it off at the tournament, only to find he’d gotten a ton faster and stronger without noticing it? Yeah, that’s kinda what the last step was for us, and now it’s time to see the results! Unless you’ve been skipping ahead (can’t judge here!) this will be the first step where a real, usable feminine voice starts to take shape. Excited yet? I hope so, because this is also the second longest step, and the one with the least guidance.
All you need to do in this step is find songs that aren’t in the “falsetto” range and learn to match them while using Head Voice. As you start singing, you may notice that you revert to Chest Voice, or that your larynx drops again, or any number of things. One positive thing you should notice, however, is that you are much better at being aware of how your throat and larynx feel as you speak and sing, which translates to being better at imitating a singer. It really comes down to trial and error at this point.
One recommendation I would have is start with Queen songs, then move into your chosen artists. Queen’s songs are pitched perfectly as a jumping off point for raising said pitch, as most are right where the masculine and feminine ranges overlap, without worrying too much about tone or resonance. Those can come a bit later, especially resonance (which gets its own step later). Disney songs are another excellent choice, though you have to be careful at first. The male parts also make for a good vocal warm-up, to help avoid straining anything.
As for other artists with women singers that work well for beginners, go for someone with a “husky” voice. My personal starting band (after Queen) was Blackmore’s Night, and I moved into LeAnn Rimes, Trick Pony, and a few video game songs once I got more advanced (If you are curious, I recently moved into singing a few Jordin Sparks and P!nk songs, as well as only having a little trouble with some of the more famous Disney songs like “Part of Your World” and “A Whole New World”).
One thing to watch out for here, especially as you start moving into higher pitches and approach the alto range, is a tightness or fatigue in your jaw after singing. That comes from using your jaw muscles to force control over a pitch above your current non-falsetto range, and that can actually hold you back considerably.
I looked this up after hitting a plateau for nearly two months and found a singing coach that referred to the fix as “lazy jaw.” Basically you should be able to hold a note while moving your head around (even if it is slowly) or moving your jaw with a hand. Once you work that in your tone will improve as well, so double win!
Once you start to get the raw pitch down you’ll probably notice that there’s still something different between yourself and the singer, which is where the next part comes in. There isn’t really a point where you are “done” with this step, but I reached a decent point in around six months with the original songs.
Step 5. Resonance – Why a Choker Can Actually Help
I don’t wear a choker, mainly because I can’t find any that are affordable and fit me, but the title does not lie. This step is all about the little shifts in vibration and position of the larynx that I, at least, couldn’t feel without something touching it constantly, hence why a choker would help. I just use a free hand and lightly touch just above and below the larynx occasionally.
This part is a little iffy, and I’m still working on the fine-tuning of my own voice, so the guide might go a different way than your voice wants to. I would strongly recommend recording your voice every now and again during this step, or possibly getting someone’s advice, especially if you have trouble recognizing perfect harmony while singing (for me that’s where I can’t hear any difference at all between the singer and my voice). I can offer a few pointers though.
First, you should have enough control of your larynx by now to have some sense of how far “forward” or “back” your voice is as well as the “up” and “down” of Chest/Throat/Head. If you want to sound airy or breathy, then move your voice “forward” and “up.” If you want to sound husky of earthy, “Back” and slightly “down” are the directions to go. Don’t forget that where your larynx and voice are will affect your pitch a bit, but with practice you can go lower in pitch while still maintaining Head Voice.
Second, try to only vibrate half of your throat. Sounds confusing, I know, but the most feminine voice I can use right now only vibrates below my larynx, not above. I have heard other people discussing the exact opposite, but I do know that masculine voices use both above and below, so as long as half is still I think it’ll be fine. Just use your ears (or a friend’s!) to figure out which one works for you, and try not to stress too much about it. I still have issues with this a lot on certain songs and artists, and I’ve been working on this step for 8 months now. Remember, your goal isn’t actually to be a perfect singer (at least, not for this guide), it’s to develop a feminine speaking voice.
Third, add some heart! I know it sounds corny and cliché, but if you can feel the singer’s emotions and add that to your singing it can make a lot of this automatic. Masculine resonance mainly uses volume for emphasis, but feminine resonance tends to use pitch and emotional emphasis instead. There is a big difference, even if it doesn’t make sense at first why.
Lastly, if you are still using headphones or earbuds, take advantage of that to really match the singer! If you think you are close, but it sounds really bad and wavy, that actually means you’re really close (within a half-step, to use proper music terminology) so keep moving up and down to get it. Very few things are as satisfying as singing in perfect harmony with a feminine singer for the first time.
Ending – You’re Still Here?
As I mentioned in the last step, this is about as far as I’ve gotten in my own training, so I can’t share anymore tips. Basically you take all the skills and awareness you got learning to sing (which is its own useful skill, I might add) and apply them to your normal speaking voice as well. In my case the pitch of my voice started raising without me even thinking about it, so I only had to train myself to automatically use the correct resonance and Head Voice before I had a convincing, feminine voice.
The only other thing I have done that is not in the steps above is try to sing parts of the Broadway musical Wicked to improve my volume in my voice, but all that seems to have done so far is shred my voice whenever I try. I can’t say I recommend that, and if you follow the steps above instead of trying to do it all at once like I did you may not even need it!
Once again I would like to mention that this guide is based on my own experiments and trial and error, so Your Mileage May Vary is definitely applicable here. Feel free to contact me @twilightdreamersmith on Tumblr if you need something clarified, or if you have any suggestions as to something I missed.
Happy training!
