Far more important than the words you use, is the sound of your voice. To sound feminine, you don’t need to use a lot of adverbs or to favor using some words over other words—as some coaches may advise. Using adverbs like “really” and “very” frequently on the phone will not convey woman to the listener... but the musicality of feminine voice will convey woman to the listener. The sound of your voice will trump your words, nowhere more than on the telephone.
At her first appointment, one transwomen client said: “My biggest anxiety about working on feminine voice is that I will sound effeminate rather than feminine.” Barbie Scott helps transwomen to find their authentic—not affected—feminine voice. Ms. Scott teaches the three most important feminine voice behaviors, the feminine voice trifecta.
Pitch: using a relatively higher pitch, so that as you speak, you feel a concentration of vibration primarily in your face, not primarily in your throat (if you feel the concentration of vibration in the throat, you know that's too low)
Onset: using gentle effort to bring your vocal cords together as you speak, rather than bringing them together forcefully; this gives the voice some breathiness and reduces masculine “edginess”
Generous mouth opening: letting your jaw drop freely, or generously, as you talk, rather than using a more closed-mouth style of jaw movement (which sounds male); this literally gives the voice more musical texture, downplays nasality by emphasizing orality, and will cause that slight feminine elongation to vowels
A caveat: in order to produce the relatively higher pitch, some transwomen also need to learn to narrow their throats slightly. If the throat is not narrowed, the new, higher pitch sounds somewhat mismatched to their vocal tract (throat) size. In Ms. Scott’s experience, many transwomen intuitively/automatically do this narrowing—without need to be guided to do so. But even if it doesn’t happen automatically, it can easily enough be learned.
One final—and very important—piece: If you haven’t already done so, before you begin voice coaching, allow yourself to sound feminine. Allow your feminine voice to be higher than what you are used to hearing from yourself. Allow your feminine voice to have a softer quality than what you are used to hearing from yourself—and this is not about insufficient loudness. Allow your feminine voice to have more musical texture than what you are used to hearing from yourself.
Before voice coaching: “I would rather
sound masculine than fake.”
After voice coaching: “In
the past [pre-voice coaching] I used to be ‘sir-ed’ on
the phone even though I would give my [exclusively feminine] name
up front. Now
that never happens.”
After learning to use the feminine voice behavior of generous jaw falling, one client said: “I like how it sounds...it has more melody—this has been awesome! ...this makes talking more fun—it adds expression and personality.”
One client offered: “I do feel more feminine when I use the feminine voice behaviors.”
After hearing the very first recording of her voice followed by hearing her now feminine voice, a client said: ”Wow! Big difference!”
Yet another client said after hearing her “before” and “after” recordings: “It’s a wonderful difference.”
A client hearing her voice-in-progress on recording: “It does sound feminine when I listen to it.”
“I love the sound of it when I get it right.” The same client who said this phoned me (Barbie) a couple of years after completing voice coaching with me. I answered the phone, and upon hearing her say, “Hi, Barbie,” I couldn’t identify what woman it was who phoned me, but I definitely heard “woman.”
Initial voice ratings by transwomen clients about their voices before they begin coaching with Ms. Scott usually are 2s and 3s on scale of 1-10, 1 being worst, 10 being best. Their final voice ratings about their own voices are 8s and 9s.
