r/transvoice • u/identity__404 • 1d ago
Question Im stuck (FTM)
I have tried to voice train in the past, but I keep getting stuck and I don't know how to continue. There's not much info on FTM voice training (I know it's just the opposite of MTF but it's not that easy to just do it in reverse), and it's hard to find anyone else doing it. Most info I do find is just "just get on T" which is not helpful at all... So I kinda just gave up. But I keep getting comments on my voice and I'm so tired of it, I just want to do something about it.
If I lower my pitch, my pitch just starts to waver, and when I asked around to figure out why that happens, people just said "idk that's weird", so I don't know what to do about it. And I don't understand how to increase vocal weight, I've looked at so much info and tried a lot of things but I still don't get it. The only thing I've figured out is darkening my voice but that just sounds stupid with the wrong pitch and vocal weight, so yeah I've been stuck unsure how to continue.
I've kinda just been assuming it's impossible to get further without T, but someone I talked to was really insistent that that's not true (despite saying they don't know much about FTM voice training, but I digress...), so I guess I'll give it another shot?
Does anyone have some advice?
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u/Thin_Entertainment14 16h ago
In my experience, vocal weight is limited by your anatomy so you can't really increase it past what you already have without T. At the very best it'll still come off as a young kid trying to act hard because you have to play up every other feature to push past being "girly" or tomboyish. Even then combined with your appearance and whatever the people perceiving you already know you may not get good results.
Example (sorry for the cockiness I was a mean 15 year old a few years ago): https://voca.ro/1ffW8N4wK5x1
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u/daylightmonster trans guy 10h ago edited 10h ago
1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 / 6 < -- its very late and i dont remember what all of these are but these are the videos i linked last time for someone looking for masculinization resources.
i wasnt able to achieve a passing voice pre t, fwiw though i think working on voice training pre t and early on gave me the ability to voice pass with fairly minimal voice changes
intonation is probably the thing you have the most control over without t. i used voice tools to watch the trajectory of my pitch when speaking phrases, and played around with using a flatter pattern of intonation (i.e. less pitch variance) and/or one that moved downwards in pitch at/towards the end of phrases. i think i only did this with the app a few times and didnt really try to drill it into myself in that way but i think just being aware of it when youre talking in the real world makes a difference. do that and mirror the speech patterns of guys around you. if you're american it can help to try doing a surfer bro/skater bro accent to blunt out your pronunciation and slur things together a bit and couple that with the flattened/downward inflection. another aspect of this is trying to reprogram yourself not to reflexively up your pitch/soften your voice shifting into "customer service voice." i linked a video for that (#6) which can give you better advice than i could
unconventional tip one of the things that helped me with weight was working on my billie joe armstrong impression a la this tutorial but i already like doing impressions and i sing in the car regularly lol so i could practice hearing the difference between singing it in my default voice and adding weight for the impression. ymmv
for pitch i recommend using the tone feature in voice tools or another pitch measuring app and keyboard/online keyboard to practice singing the notes at the bottom of your range to develop strength down there. deepening your range will be limited by your anatomy but strengthening the notes you already possess a bit above "scraping the very bottom" is within your power. if you dont have much experience singing, doing some work on developing your breath support couldn't hurt
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u/Celatra 1d ago
unfortunately all you can do is alter your speech patterns (become more monotone, use a different cadence) because you can't push your voice lower than it physically goes. MTF involves techniques of thinning the folds to emulate the thinner vocal folds of women, but the reverse cannot sadly be done.
it is possible through vocal training to achieve thicker chord closure but all it does is increase your volume and give at best 1 to 2 notes of extra low end.