Transgender voice training unites the soul and sound

i would like to share with you the story

of one of my clients

a woman named heather heather first

reached out to me

last fall because her voice was making

her miserable

she told me during our first session

together she said i hate my voice

it makes me feel like giving up

to her whenever she spoke and had to use

her voice

she never heard herself she always heard

a stranger’s voice

this negative relationship with her

voice was impacting her professional

life

and her personal life as a high school

teacher

heather was required to use her voice

for hours a day

and using her voice for so long every

single work day was just

wearing her down she also found herself

going out with friends less

and going on less dates and in general

trying to avoid speaking in public as

much as possible to preserve her mental

health

and her physical safety as a transgender

woman

heather felt like she was always being

examined under a microscope scrutinized

for any sign of vulnerability based on

her previous experiences

she knew that if she spoke and the wrong

person overheard her

at a bar or in a bathroom she was

opening herself up to harassment

even verbal or physical assault

ultimately one day heather had a choice

to make

she could continue living with this

discomfort and this fear

or she could try and take action and

gain control over her voice

and find a different part of her voice

that she felt represented her

better thankfully heather chose the

latter option

and that’s how she found me as a

speech-language pathologist who

specializes in the assessment and

treatment

of voice disorders as well as

transgender vocal training

i’ve worked with a number of clients who

have been where heather was that day

it never gets easier to hear people say

such negative

visceral things about themselves and

when it comes from a member of the trans

community

it particularly strikes home for me as a

member of the community myself

i’ve heard countless friends and

siblings

echo these feelings of hopelessness and

negative self-talk

now personally speaking i have a

fantastic relationship with my voice

through my background as a voice actor

singer and performer

i’ve gained a great deal of vocal

flexibility and so i can make my voice

do

whatever i need to in order to feel

satisfied with it

and thanks to my degree in

speech-language pathology i had the

theoretical

knowledge and the underlying framework

of how to help other people

achieve similar levels of flexibility

and comfort with their own voices

i found myself in a unique position to

help

my community where i felt that they were

currently being underserved

most people when they produce their

voices they don’t think about

exactly how it works i feel like unless

your voice revolves around

unless your work revolves around the

voice like mind does

and what most people don’t realize is

that their voice

is actually the combination of the

interplay of several different systems

in the body and by changing one or more

of these aspects

we can change the voice that we produce

we

can come up with all sorts of different

uh what i refer to as different mixes of

the voice

and these different mixes can

communicate different things about us

now the audio that you’re about to hear

is the combination of two different

mixes of heather’s voice

the first mix was recorded during our

very first session together before we

started working together

so we could establish a baseline of

where heather’s voice was coming from

the second recording was recorded on our

very last day together

before we said our final goodbyes let’s

go ahead and listen to that

i’m keeping a running list of facts

findings and feelings that i’ve come

across in my transition

after six months i started feeling a

little better about this whole thing and

gained a little perspective on the

process

here are the things so far i wish i

could share with myself of the not too

distant past

i know a lot of this is subjective and

personal experience but i’m hoping maybe

this can help others just starting out

please add to this list in the comments

if you’ve got anything

the difference between these two mixes

of heather’s voice

is as plain as night and day beyond the

more directly observable and measurable

differences such as her

increase in pitch the biggest difference

that i hear

is the happiness in heather’s voice in

that first mix

we can hear just how heavily heather’s

voice is weighing on her

it sounds like she’s almost slogging

through the mud just to get through this

paragraph to read and in that second mix

all of that heaviness is

gone her voice sounds unencumbered it

sounds free

we had successfully aligned heather’s

sound with her

soul but how did heather

get to that last recording from the

first what exactly does transgender

vocal training

look like well the process can be very

different from client to client but

ultimately we are looking at

accomplishing three main things

one increase the client’s vocal

flexibility and their stamina

two find a mix of their voice that they

prefer to their default voice

that they feel like represents them

better and three

instilling that new mix into their

muscle memory so that by the time

they’re using this voice in conversation

they barely even have to think about

their voice at all

when heather and i first began working

together she had a lot of walls built up

around her voice as unhappy as her voice

made her it was still somewhat of a safe

harbor for her

and moving outside of that known area of

her voice to

something she did know uncharted waters

required a tremendous act of

bravery and courage on her part it was

something that we needed to work

up to something that i needed to earn

from her

and so to begin getting her body in

motion we started with some very basic

breathing exercises

and i would like everyone watching this

video to join along with these breathing

exercises

if you’re open to it if you don’t that’s

fine i won’t catch you

go ahead and take in a nice big inhale

in through your nose

down into your belly and then out

through your mouth inhale

and exhale that feels so good we’re

gonna do another one real quick inhale

and exhale that was more for my

nervousness than for y’all but hopefully

you found some good out of it

so if we are taking these nice deep

breaths

we are slowing down our heart rate we

are providing our brains with more

oxygen and this can help decrease the

anxiety and the

fear that we can feel and if we are

taking these nice deep breaths

it’s really not asking too much to add

just a gentle side to that exhale so go

ahead and try that out

take in a nice deep breath

and then let out a sigh

the voice that we hear is the result of

a small apparatus in our throat

of larynx there are two folds of muscle

in the larynx that are brought together

when we want to produce our voice

as air comes up from underneath these

sheets of muscle are pushed apart

and then they are sucked back together

again and pushed apart and sucked back

together

in this sort of oscillating motion here

and as air passes through those

oscillators

the air is set into motion it starts to

vibrate

and that is what we perceive as pitch

the faster the vibrations the higher the

pitch that we hear

and the slower the vibrations the lower

the pitch that we hear

so we are producing our voice we are

exhaling from the lungs that air is

being set into vibrations

in the larynx before it travels out into

the environment and into our ears it

passes through our resonating cavities

our oral cavity

and our nasal cavity and based on the

size and shape of those cavities

certain parts of that sound signal are

amplified other parts are reduced

and that’s what results in each person’s

unique

texture of their voice everyone’s oral

cavity and nasal cavity

is unique and that’s how we can tell one

person’s voice

from another you can think about these

differences

in the size and shape of these

resonating chambers as the difference

between a violin

and a cello now the violin in cello

they’re relatively the same

shape but because of the drastic

difference in size

of these instruments the quality the

timbre

the resonance of the sound produced is

drastically different

the sound produced by the cello because

of this large resonating cavity is warm

and rich

you can almost physically feel it more

than you can hear it

inversely for the violin the resulting

sound is bright

it is piercing it soars over the rest of

the orchestra

and we can achieve similar qualities in

our own voices by

modifying the size and shape of our

mouths

so we can look at if we want to achieve

darker

richer qualities in our voice we can

increase the size of our mouths

and this results in that darker richer

mix of our voice

if we want to look at lightening up the

voice we can decrease the size of the

oral cavity

and this results in some of these

brighter thinner qualities i referred to

somewhat similar to the violin

so through transgender vocal training we

look at modifying these three different

aspects of voicing

breath flow pitch and resonance

we look at modifying them discreetly in

structured

therapeutic tasks but we can also make

broad

sweeping changes through more general

vocal play

and vocal play is one of the my favorite

things about this work

possibly because of my voice acting

background but also

it’s incredibly helpful for clients

because it is the goal is less to find

their perfect ideal voice that

represents them

and it’s more about just playing around

with these silly different characters

and we can often access some of these

qualities that we’re looking to play

around with in our voices a little bit

easier through this more

general play so some examples if we’re

looking to

access some of that darker richer

resonance we may look at adapting the

voice of an

opera singer or a giant right v5

and that often helps people just

instinctively tap into those darker

richer qualities

inversely if we’re looking to play

around with some bright resonance we may

look at like a cheerleader character or

like a valley girl-ish character

and oftentimes when you tell people what

does a cheerleader sound like or what is

your mental image of a cheerleader

they often go for this brighter thinner

resonance just right off the bat

and that’s just one method of voice

exploration that we use

depending on a client’s individual

background with their voice and their

goals

we may look at a variety of different

techniques we may look at

incorporating some singing techniques if

they have that background or if they’re

interested in gaining that skill set

we may look at employing some imagery

and metaphor

to help these clients describe how these

different voices

sound and feel to them as they produce

them we may even use some more

traditional

vocal rehabilitation methods and

strengthen some muscles

so that it’s easier for them to access

these different parts of their voice

without as much strain or tension

no matter the methods involved when

we’re first starting off we start on a

very simple

level of voice production it’s one thing

to toss

a client a paragraph of romeo and juliet

and say all right go ahead and read this

and let’s go ahead and play around with

your voice that could be very

intimidating for some people

and so we look at starting on a much

smaller scale playing around with

individual vowel sounds

so for example if we’re looking to uh

modify the ooh vowel if we want to keep

pitch the same but modify resonance that

might sound like

once a client feels comfortable with

that much simpler level of voice

production

we can increase the complexity we might

put that vowel into a single syllable

word context

so again if we’re talking about that ooh

vowel

the word might be mood so mood

mood mood mood mood

mood and once they feel comfortable

there we may move up to multi-syllabic

words

once they’re comfortable there we move

up to three to four word

short phrases and the reason that we

structure it this way is that by the

time they’re using their voice in

conversation

their muscles are so used to this action

that it’s a lot easier to produce with a

lot less

thought

so that’s how we address the mechanical

aspects of this work

however there’s another piece that we’ve

barely touched on

that is integral to a client making

progress and being happy with the end

result

and that is how we help a client figure

out

what sound aligns with their sense of

self

the best this can be a tricky thing

for a number of reasons the main of

which the main reason being

that when they first come to me the

client may not

fully know themselves at that point and

as they

move further in their transition and

learn more about themselves and they’re

exposed to new things

what they want to communicate about

themselves may

change another speed bump that we can

encounter is that oftentimes clients put

way too much power and responsibility in

my hands

they maybe even subconsciously expect

that i will tell

them how to sound female

which is understandable i mean i am the

voice professional in the relationship

but it completely overlooks just how

important that client’s feedback is to

this entire process

because ultimately i’m not going to be

hearing their voice for the rest of my

life

they are and so ultimately their

happiness their satisfaction with the

sound

matters way more than my professional

opinion about what sounds good or what

sounds like the voice that they should

produce

and so we try and counteract this by

addressing these concerns

upfront we discuss expectations from

both the client and myself

about what’s going to happen during this

process

so from the very beginning we make sure

that the client understands that this

is a partnership between us it’s going

to take just as much

commitment from them and exploration on

their own time

as it will take from me during our

weekly sessions

and so daily practice is another huge

critical component of this piece

they need to take home what we discussed

during our sessions

and practice practice practice try out a

bunch of different mixes of their voice

and hopefully come back to our next

session having made a ton of progress on

their own

now heather was a model client in this

regard

whenever she would come in for a session

she would

be all excited and share some anecdotes

about the the positive experiences that

she had with her voice from the previous

round of independent practice

as well as a couple areas where she felt

a little bit less successful

and that was perfect that was fantastic

because then we knew exactly what to

focus on during our sessions together

i think the biggest breakthrough for

heather came when she first

heard her laugh i think the biggest

breakthrough for heather came when she

first

heard herself laugh in her authentic

voice for the first time

i could still clearly picture her facial

expression as she looked at me with

tears bribing in her eyes and she said

that’s me

that’s my voice and from that first

moment of gender euphoria that eureka

moment

she was unstoppable heather took our

work and she ran with it

she started using her voice in as many

contexts as she felt comfortable she

started practicing around her

friends her family members trusted

allies at her workplace

and when she started using her voice

more socially in these

safe environments she started to branch

out her usage of that to

every aspect of her life she started

talking to strangers with it and

completing calls with it

and ultimately at that point she really

didn’t need to concentrate on her voice

at all because it was so set

into her muscle memory and because she

wanted to use it because it made her so

happy so if you at home are watching

this video and any part of heather’s

story is resonating with you

i would highly encourage you to reach

out to a voice professional

because you shouldn’t have to live with

that discomfort be like heather

and take charge thank you so much