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pastadoughie · 1 day

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alottt of transmascs seem 2 think tyhat vocal training is somehow superr hard n super difficult, but its rlly not! i think part of this is in part because of voice instructional videos, half of them are people spouting bullshit or not being descriptive enough, and the other half (by vocal coaches) are loaded with technical termonology witch is missmatched between them, making it very difficult to tell what part of the body they are talking abt just to preface, you probably will not have an extrordinarily deep voice, but you can absolutely get a passing male voice even if you have a super high pitched voice! vocal gender is not determined only by how deep your voice is, you can have a high pitched male voice and a low pitched female voice to give you an example of how much change you can expect, here is my voice, ive been doing vocal training for about 3 years now.

there isnt actually a massive difference in terms of the depth, but there is a noticable difference in terms of masculinity i sound a little bit uncomfortable in the normal voice example, this is because i pretty much never use my natural voice, so its not my "default" voice anymore you will not lose your normal voice as you do vocal training, you simply will get better at controling your mouth and throat muscles to make it deeper, so if you are closeted you can still do vocal training while maintaining your higher pitch voice, its a matter of building up a muscle memory, after a while it becomes automatic the examples were taken like, a minute from eachother, its just moving your mouth in the right way you can also see i have a bit of a thicker accent while doing my vocal training voice, this is because pronouncing words very clearly and distinctly while also making your voice deeper is very difficult & something i am still working on note that this is still good to do and to work on even if you plan on going on T !! unless you have been on puberty blockers or started hrt very very early (at puberty age) then HRT will not be perfect and is not identical to the effects of stereotypical amab puberty, this isnt to say that it wont help, but the differences in larynx height that you will naturally get are not the same intensity as what generally happens in male puberty. this means you will have a higher then average male voice, as well as transmasc voices absent of vocal training generally sound more buzzy and nasaly here is an example, given by a dear friend of mine who would prefer to be unnamed

this isnt to dunk on anybody who has this kind of voice, i personally like it, but it is clockable if you know what to look for, witch could be unsafe depending on where you live to start : anatomy you are not a guitar, youre more like a bottle. to speak you blow air through your windpipe, and depending on the width of your tube/windpipe you will have a lower/ higher pitched sound, your vocal cords/voicebox are a fold in that tube, witch can open and close to constrict or widen your tube thin tube = higher pitched wide tube = lower pitched within stereotypical male puberty, these folds thicken, making them close less easily then thinner folds, making the voice deeper the opening/closing of the folds is sometimes called the "glottal cycle" and thick folds are are sometimes refered to as having a "high closed quotient" having thicker vocal folds is something only achivable through testosterone, but you can get a deeper voice by making your tube bigger, sometimes refered to as "lowering your larynx", a lower larynx results in an adams apple, and you can use how much of an adams apple you have during training as a phisical reference point

beside your tube, you have a set of strap muscles, these you can move, its by controlling these that you can hold your tube open. you cannot move your windpipe itself, only the strap muscles

to find your strap muscles, you can do a small excersize - in a relaxed position and your mouth open, place your hand underneath your collarbone to one side firmly, pinning the skin down - tilt your head backwards and close your mouth - hold for a few secconds, then close your mouth and tilt your head back to a normal position - repeat on other side you should be able to feel a pulling in the strap muscle on eather side, generally one is tigher then the other. doing this excersise can help you make them a lil more flexable, witch helps you maintain your deep voice when you move your head around making your voice deeper / lowering the larynx :

on an anatomical level, you are going to control your strap muscles to tug your windpipe downwards, creating more space and a deeper sound you can feel this in your mouth, use your toungue to feel the bottom of your mouth, this bottom part of your mouth is what you wanna try to make bigger, kindof like a frog

people sometimes refer to this as speaking with a yawn, or liken it to trying to eat something large like a snowglobe, but this is a ultimately harmful way of thinking about it, and generally leads to people moving their larynx and mouth in a way that is straining, not very helpful for making your voice deeper, and also kindof slimey sounding you should not feel pressure in the back of your throat or the top of your mouth, you should only feel the pulling of your strap muscles and the expanding of the bottom portion of your mouth. below your toungue if you place your hand where your adams apple would be, you should be able to feel it bulge and tense up when you do this

you can do vocal slides in order to practice this - drink some water and clear your throat - take a deep breath and, at a volume and pitch that is comfortable and natural for you, open your mouth and go aaaaaa - trying to keep your mouth open the same ammount as you go, try and expand your tube, feeling the bottom of your mouth inflate a little, you can feel your throat to have phisical confermation of if you are doing it correctly - once you have reached the maximum ammount of open that is comfortable for you, try and hold that note as long as you can, being careful not to slide your pitch up if done correctly it should sound something like :

you need to make sure that you are pacing your air properly, you should be able to hold the note at a consistant volume for the length of the slide here is an example of a slide done without properly pacing your air, this is called "vocal fry"

you can help avoid this by doing the slide slower, you dont have to rush getting to the lowest note as fast as possible, try not to stress your vocal cords this slide is very difficult, if you are having trouble, you can modify the excersize if your issue is keeping your volume consistant, or keeping your jaw open the same ammount, you can do the same thing but humming instead

if your issue is pacing your air, and going into vocal fry, you can do the same thing, but you pant like a dog

being louder / vocal weight : vocal weight describes how loud you are / how much air you are pushing through your windpipe, if you find you are too quiet, you can try doing a volume slide

- drink some water and clear your throat - take a deep breath and, at LOW volume open your mouth and go aaaaaa, i would reccomend doing this at your normal pitch - trying to keep your mouth open the same ammount as you go, increase the ammount of air you let through your lungs, getting louder - hold it as loud as you can for as long as you can, and once you run out of air you can stop as with the other slide, you wanna make sure you do this one slowly, and make sure to start the slide at a low volume, this is to help you get more familiar with controlling the ammount of air you let through your windpipe once you get comfortable with that, you should combine that with the previous slide, and try to expand your tube/ lower your larynx as you get louder

maintaining that depth when speaking :

speaking is the same thing as singing, but it involves way more movement of the mouth, and if you dont change your technique a little between speaking and singing it will sound bad try to keep in mind the position of your tongue, while flattening it can help with getting the opening of your tube part down, you dont wanna actually talk like that, try to have your toungue in a natural position just resting against your bottom teeth try not to compress your throat, you shouldnt feel any kind of pressure against your windpipe, you should only feel a pulling in your strap muscles if you notice your voice sounds slimey or nasaly or muffled, youre focusing a little bit too hard on creating good mouth space that youre messing with your throat space

if you sound slimey, make sure you arent flattening your toungue against the bottom of your mouth, and that you arent straining or over exerting yourself, it shouldnt feel painful or tense at the back of your throat or top of your mouth if you have a hard time maintaining your voice while doing things you should stretch your strap muscles using the excersize in the anatomy section, if they arent super flexable then its going to be hard maintaining your voice while tilting your head when you start its gonna be pretty hard, so make sure that you dont overexert yourself or get hyperfixated on having a deep voice 24/7, you dont wanna damage your voice at all not being embarrassed / practical use :

alot of vocal training excersizes sound pretty stupid, but you dont have to do the excersizes exactly how they are shown here when doing my vocal training i generally sing or hum to a song, ideally one with alot of sustained notes and that doesnt require very fast pitch changes if you want a song i like to start with, i like this one by cats millionare, but you can really do whatever song you like as long as it works good for you

while not required having a male vocalist in the song can also help. it helps switch vocal training from a concious effort to a more subconcious thing, because your brain trys to mimic the voice of the people you listen to with speaking around people i used to feel a little embarrassed about using my deeper voice, because it made me feel like im just like. a stupid little boy trying to make my voice deeper to sound cool. but one thing you have to realize about this kind of thought is that its internalized transphobia if speaking in a certain way, even if its unnatural, makes you happier then you should do it, the idea of having a "natural" and "unnatural" voice is a common idea in transphobic retoric, this idea that youre "faking" a voice so you can "trick people" into "thinking that youre a different gender" ultimately, youre doing this to become more happy and comfortable in your voice, and if anybody HAS an issue with that or think that thats stupid, then theyre transphobic, though they probably dont realize it. if you dont like singing or humming, you can also just speak and read things out, there really is no reccomendation i have for this, maybe get on a call with your friends and play a visual novel or something, reading out all the dialougue. having friends while you do this helps, as you can have them remind you when you start losing or slipping up with the deeper voice you dont actually have to make sound to vocal train, you can do it in complete silence, anatomically youre just moving the muscles in your mouth a certain way, and the sound part is done by blowing air through, but the making sound part is just the final step of the excersizes and it is optional. you can vocal train in complete silence at any time i would reccomend doing it with sound to start, but as you get more used to it then you can do it without the sound to practice most importantly for doing it consistantly though is dont make it a chore to do, while the anatomical and technical aspects are important to learn the most important thing is having it be practical for you to do, so find a method to do it regularly that works for you you dont have to like, do it 24/7 or anything, though you will build a habit for it quicker if you do. if you need to switch how deep your voice is around family thats not gonna somehow take away your progress

fankyu 4 reading!! if you have any questions pleaseplease ask them and i will try to respond!! i know theres alot of formatting issues, i tried so hard to fix them but tumblr is just not having it, i dont know why

#the beast speaks #trans #transgender #ftm #ftm voice training #ftm vocal training #idfk how 2 tag

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genderqueerdykes · 3 days

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now more than ever it's blatantly obvious that people go out of their way to erase trans men from communities and queer history. it's always been happening, but it's way easier to watch it in real time now thanks to the internet and social media. we are watching people basically gloating that they misgender trans men and don't see them as men. we are now watching people kick trans men out of queer spaces because they are often "femme and them" or "nonbinary and woman" support groups, conflating nonbinary identities with womanhood, and denying trans men or transmasc nonbinary people places to go. many of them get told that their presence would "scare" the lesbians, women and enbies because they have trauma.

where do the trans men with trauma go, though? we can't go anywhere. when i was struggling with domestic violence that ended up destroying my right leg, i was denied shelter in queer spaces and even women's spaces even though i have F on license. domestic violence shelters especially will turn trans men away if we pass. even if we partially identify as women, we can't go in because 'our voices are deep and scary and we're loud and aggressive and threatening and might prey on the defenseless scared women'

finding transmasc support groups is like trying to find a needle in a haystack. i've seen numerous organizations across the US have transfemme support groups, nonbinary/genderqueer support groups, and then nothing for transmascs. where the hell do we go when they won't let us go anywhere?

we try to exist online and they try to erase us from here, too. bickering and arguing about how we're not real men, sending trans men death and sexual assault threats, acting like they're saviors for kicking out the "dangerous ugly men" from the queer community, as if we don't belong to it at all.

i refuse to be erased. i refuse to sit in silence while people tell me my problems don't matter because now i "have male privilege". I don't. once people find out what my legal name is they view me as a woman. strangers however view me as a cis man and will deny me help, either through programs, or because i'm a "strong young man, i should be able to pick myself up by my boot straps." i'm not white. i'm not abled.

i'm proud to be a trans man and i will be here to fight for other trans men's rights to have a platform to speak, and spaces to occupy. i will not rest until trans men & mascs have safe places to be and meet other trans men.

trans men are queer. we belong here. we are taking up the space we rightfully deserve and we are not leaving.

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