Many nonbinary, trans, genderfluid, and gender non-conforming people want to play with voice—but don’t want to sound specifically “masculine” or “feminine.” The good news is, gender expression is performance, and you can choose how you want to be seen and heard.
If you’ve started gender-affirming hormone therapy (GAHT), you might have already noticed some changes in your voice. Testosterone can make your voice sound husky during your first couple of months, almost like you have a mild cold. Over time, your voice might drop in pitch and become lower. Testosterone causes your vocal folds (vocal cords) to thicken, lengthen, and vibrate more slowly. The cartilage of your larynx might also grow and tilt, giving you an Adam’s apple. Estrogen, on the other hand, has no impact on your vocal cords if you’ve already been through a testosterone-dominant puberty.
If you want to experiment with your voice, you can try the wonderful, free resources in this article. Some are from Your Lessons Now and some are from vocal coach Anna Freya (she/her).
All of the tools in these videos can be used to customize the individual characteristics of your voice. This article shares some helpful information that you can use right away to change the resonance, tone, brightness, and sound of your voice!
This resource was prepared for the Plume community by the vocal coaching team at Your Lessons Now to accompany our 2021 webinar about vocal health, changes, and the joy of voice. If you missed the live webinar, don’t worry! We recorded it and included it in this blog, so you can watch it any time.
Femme Vocal Exercises
What are exercises to raise or brighten your voice?
While we think of “femme” voices as high and sweet, “femininity” actually has very little to do with whether you’re a soprano or a baritone. “Femme” voices sound bright and raised, as your vocal folds vibrate a little faster and with thinner contact to create a sparkling pitch that catches the ear. The elements of feminine voice include:
- pitch
- resonance
- posture
- sentence structure
- brightness of individual sounds.
Voice feminization exercises can help you achieve a more feminine voice, or a voice that is brighter/higher. By practicing both singing and speaking exercises, you can develop the muscles and vocal agility to sound more feminine. Here’s a video with some beginning exercises, so you can try this style of speaking and singing:
Resonance for Brightening Your Voice
“Femme” voices are resonant in a way that is perceived as brighter, and can be felt vibrating more in the face and head . (Some women and femmes, like Kim Kardashian, make their voices ultra-resonant and speak with tons of vocal fry.) For those of us who aren’t used to speaking with brighter resonance, this can be a hard skill to master. In this video, you can begin to explore adding a new kind of resonance to your feminine voice. Your Lessons Now shows how you can hear a resonance that moves “north” in your body and comes from your face and head, and less from your chest:
Higher Pitch for a More Feminine Voice
Once you’ve played with the sounds of face and head resonance, you can try working on pitch! While women and femmes speak with all kinds of voices, our ears are trained to hear certain pitches as “feminine.” Culturally, we think of “feminine” voices as higher, which can be difficult to achieve without practice, or if you are not used to altering your pitch range. (Spoiler alert: pitch may not be as significant of an element as you might expect!)
Changing Your Posture to Change Your Voice
The way you sit changes the shape of your lungs, diaphragm, larynx, and even how freely your vocal folds can vibrate. If you’re having trouble increasing your pitch, it might be because of your posture. Some people find that upper body tension limits their ability to increase their pitch at first. Practicing different posture can improve your stamina when speaking, strengthen your ability to shift your vocal resonance, and decrease your risk of vocal injury. This video will help you learn a way of posture and breathing that will be most beneficial for your voice.
Learning by Feeling
In addition to using sound and visual cues, learning what feelings are created by a feminine voice can be very helpful. Sensory cues like the resonance of the voice in your cheeks and neck will give you clues about how your voice sounds. As you experiment with a higher pitch, your physical body can tell you if you’re practicing correctly. You can trust your feelings and your body. Since your voice can be affected by a change in scenery, recording quality, or illness, count on your body to tell you what’s happening in your voice. In this video, Anna goes over feeling “smoothness” in your voice:
Something Fun for Brightening Your Voice
Vocal change is an important part of many people’s transitions. However, we don’t have to take these changes too seriously. Stepping into your gender identity and owning your power can be fun, playful, and freeing. Now that you’ve tried the “feminizing” exercises, you might enjoy this little challenge. It will help you use the voice exercises you already practiced in a more playful way. Give it a try!
Masc Vocal Exercises
Testosterone thickens your vocal folds and makes them vibrate more slowly, which naturally lowers your pitch and makes your voice sound deeper. You can achieve a deeper voice without gender-affirming hormone therapy (GAHT), as well. Culturally, we associate deeper voices with masculinity. For those of us who want to be perceived as more masculine, adding this kind of voice can be a game-changer. If you’re using GAHT, you can also use these exercises as your voice changes to feel more comfortable. The elements of masculine voice include:
- breathing technique
- monotone sentence structure
- Resonance
Make Your Voice Deeper with Breathing
Take a deep breath. When you inhale deeply and slowly, you can physically lower your voice box and open your throat. That creates a more spacious vocal tract, which generates lower pitches. It also adds more chest resonance to your voice. In this video, Anna will show you how to take a deeper breath. Breathing is the foundation of a “masculine” voice—a subtle but powerful change in how you sound to other people.
Speaking In Monotone to Sound More Masculine
Culturally, we are accustomed to thinking of “feminine” voices as expressive and light, with lots of variations in pitch. Voices that we hear as “masculine” tend to have less range. To those of us who are used to speaking with “feminine” voices, switching to “masculine” style can feel like speaking in a monotone. In this video, you can begin to explore using an open throat to remove some of the pitch variation in your sound. Less pitch plus more chest resonance will give a more “masculine” impression on your listeners. Your Lessons Now’s instructor Anna will go over a couple exercises with word examples to help you:
Chest Resonance to Go Deeper
When you use these exercises, you will notice that your voice sounds both deeper and richer. As you practice, you can play with a lower pitch, open throat, chest resonance, and monotone speech pattern. This video will show you how to play with some darker sounds that also contribute to a more masculine voice:
Androgynous Voice
The key to developing an androgynous voice is exploring the elements of your voice and playing with how different techniques affect it. As you gain awareness of your voice, you will be able to fine-tune it to sound like yourself.
What “androgynous” means to you is personal and individual: you might try mixing the elements of voice that resonate most with you and your expression. Maybe you want to learn how to modulate your pitch up or down. Maybe you want to try adding face resonance, or instead creating a richer sound. Try playing with the tools in these voice tutorials. There is no such thing as an entirely “neutral” voice, just a voice that sounds like your true, authentic self.
Having a voice that matches your new and developing physical characteristics is important to some trans people—and doesn’t matter at all to others. All paths are valid.
The exercises in this article are described as femme, masc, and androgynous. We want to recognize that terms like these are imperfect when relating to personal gender expression and experience. Many trans people choose to speak with their unaltered voices, while others practice vocal exercises to affirm their identities, code-switch in mixed groups, or for safety reasons. Voice is an additional layer of identity that is both malleable and powerful—and all yours to shape, as you choose.
One thing to keep in mind: while tutorials can be helpful, they aren’t a substitute for voice lessons with an experienced vocal coach. If you are feeling stuck, consider working one-on-one with someone who can help you reach your goals for your voice. You can also sign up for our newsletter to learn when the next vocal training webinar is. (Yes, it’s free!)
