why do i keep getting so scared and nervous even just watching trans voice lessons on youtube? forget following along, i can't even get myself to simply watch the videos, what the hell?
It's hard, and it's something you need to practice a lot over time. In general learning new skills is difficult to maintain. Especially if you're not interested in the mechanics of voice and sound, it can be a slog.
Unlike doing HRT or hair removal, which we can just do and move on, voice training is something we feel we can fail at. So there's the added anxiety of "I can't do this" or "I'm fucking up so much" or "this isn't actually me" or "this feels like a fake cartoon voice".
It's a looooong process. Trans voice lessons said that your new voice becomes natural when you use it on accident at least 50% of the time. I can't even maintain it for an evening while trying, let alone doing it on accident lol.
All of these factors lead it to be anxiety inducing, imo.
HOWEVER, it's also one of the things you can pretty much practice anywhere, and it's free, so it's a lot more accessible than other things. Also, it's got me interested in singing, and I'm loving it.
Yeah, I'm struggling so hard with just getting properly started myself. I've spent the past three weeks doing some daily vocal exercises, then I found out a few days ago that they're pretty much useless and based on incorrect information, so now I'm back to square one :(
I'm considering just paying for a few lessons with a voice coach, I don't think I'm able to do this on my own
It's terrifying and dysphoria inducing. Every person I know that attempted to voice train from these videos was terrified in some manner at some point, so don't feel bad. I know it was difficult for myself as well.
I keep having bad experiences with it where my friends straight up don't even notice I'm trying. I was talking with my friend and switched to a subtly "femme" voice while talking about the idea of voice training and this bitch turns to me with a bright smile and says "You should try your voice training right now" like i hadn't already been doing for the last 45 seconds
my other friend told me "idk i just hear [my name]" when i tried switching. holy fuck i'm putting such effort and thought into what i'm saying and people straight up don't fucking notice
Unfortunately, the first couple steps are not very noticeable. It takes mastering a lot of techniques to get to that point where it's clearly different to those that hear your voice often. I think it took me around 2 or 3 months before people started to hear a difference. This is definitely a skill that requires a massive amount of effort and a massive amount of time investment. It's hard af, but holy hells it is worth it.
I took voice lessons in person (my health insurance covers most of that) and i've never struggled with the usual stuff like dysphoria from listening to the recordings, i view my voice as an instrument and not as something that's inherently part of me. But i had a breakdown at some point where i didn't know if i want to go on and another moment where i really questioned which voice goals to set. I just reached the point eventually were i seriously wondered how much effort i want to put into passing when it isn't needed for my own comfort - i don't get dysphoria when my voice is in an androgynous range, so if i would go further than i am now, i would only be doing it for cis people, to assimilate into their weird, butchphobic notion of womanhood, and that just destroys all of my motivation to keep actually working on my voice, even though i'm one of the few trans people who actually enjoys voice training.
Damn, that's pretty awesome. In that you never got dysphoria for doing it and that your insurance paid for it. That's gotta be rare as hell.
Don't get me wrong, I did enjoy training it, but the videos would highlight my shortcomings and it would get to me from time to time. The actual changing the voice part was an interesting experience where it was fascinating to see how my voice would be altered with each added technique of modulating everything. However, I will say that I oft got mad at myself for missing the mark or dropping the new technique or what have you. Even to this day, where I'm probably a year past having reached where I needed to be, I'm still paranoid about failing to pass with my voice.
Speech therapy is actually one of the very few areas in German trans healthcare where accessibility and coverage aren't a problem. But don't get me started on laser hair removal.
Damn. That's actually really cool. All insurances I've come across here in the States straight refuse to cover speech therapy. Laser hair removal is very iffy. Mine doesn't, but my puppy wife's did but only to remove hair for the bottom surgeries that required it.
why do i keep getting so scared and nervous even just watching trans voice lessons on youtube? forget following along, i can't even get myself to simply watch the videos, what the hell?
It's hard, and it's something you need to practice a lot over time. In general learning new skills is difficult to maintain. Especially if you're not interested in the mechanics of voice and sound, it can be a slog.
Unlike doing HRT or hair removal, which we can just do and move on, voice training is something we feel we can fail at. So there's the added anxiety of "I can't do this" or "I'm fucking up so much" or "this isn't actually me" or "this feels like a fake cartoon voice".
It's a looooong process. Trans voice lessons said that your new voice becomes natural when you use it on accident at least 50% of the time. I can't even maintain it for an evening while trying, let alone doing it on accident lol.
All of these factors lead it to be anxiety inducing, imo.
HOWEVER, it's also one of the things you can pretty much practice anywhere, and it's free, so it's a lot more accessible than other things. Also, it's got me interested in singing, and I'm loving it.
Yeah, I'm struggling so hard with just getting properly started myself. I've spent the past three weeks doing some daily vocal exercises, then I found out a few days ago that they're pretty much useless and based on incorrect information, so now I'm back to square one :(
I'm considering just paying for a few lessons with a voice coach, I don't think I'm able to do this on my own
It's terrifying and dysphoria inducing. Every person I know that attempted to voice train from these videos was terrified in some manner at some point, so don't feel bad. I know it was difficult for myself as well.
I keep having bad experiences with it where my friends straight up don't even notice I'm trying. I was talking with my friend and switched to a subtly "femme" voice while talking about the idea of voice training and this bitch turns to me with a bright smile and says "You should try your voice training right now" like i hadn't already been doing for the last 45 seconds
my other friend told me "idk i just hear [my name]" when i tried switching. holy fuck i'm putting such effort and thought into what i'm saying and people straight up don't fucking notice
Unfortunately, the first couple steps are not very noticeable. It takes mastering a lot of techniques to get to that point where it's clearly different to those that hear your voice often. I think it took me around 2 or 3 months before people started to hear a difference. This is definitely a skill that requires a massive amount of effort and a massive amount of time investment. It's hard af, but holy hells it is worth it.
I took voice lessons in person (my health insurance covers most of that) and i've never struggled with the usual stuff like dysphoria from listening to the recordings, i view my voice as an instrument and not as something that's inherently part of me. But i had a breakdown at some point where i didn't know if i want to go on and another moment where i really questioned which voice goals to set. I just reached the point eventually were i seriously wondered how much effort i want to put into passing when it isn't needed for my own comfort - i don't get dysphoria when my voice is in an androgynous range, so if i would go further than i am now, i would only be doing it for cis people, to assimilate into their weird, butchphobic notion of womanhood, and that just destroys all of my motivation to keep actually working on my voice, even though i'm one of the few trans people who actually enjoys voice training.
Damn, that's pretty awesome. In that you never got dysphoria for doing it and that your insurance paid for it. That's gotta be rare as hell.
Don't get me wrong, I did enjoy training it, but the videos would highlight my shortcomings and it would get to me from time to time. The actual changing the voice part was an interesting experience where it was fascinating to see how my voice would be altered with each added technique of modulating everything. However, I will say that I oft got mad at myself for missing the mark or dropping the new technique or what have you. Even to this day, where I'm probably a year past having reached where I needed to be, I'm still paranoid about failing to pass with my voice.
Speech therapy is actually one of the very few areas in German trans healthcare where accessibility and coverage aren't a problem. But don't get me started on laser hair removal.
Damn. That's actually really cool. All insurances I've come across here in the States straight refuse to cover speech therapy. Laser hair removal is very iffy. Mine doesn't, but my puppy wife's did but only to remove hair for the bottom surgeries that required it.
It's really fun hard. Took me a while and also I'm still no good at all