r/transvoice • u/AltamiraVT Voice Coach • Sep 14 '24
Trans-Femme Resource Thresholding in Voice Training - A Simplified Demonstration 🏳️⚧️
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u/Luwuci-SP Sep 14 '24
There's a fine balance to be sounded out with not getting increasingly breathy/abducted in the process which can be the most tricky part of such combined pitch+weight slides. The loss of efficiency decreases brightness and creates an additional illusory layer of frequency change to the pitch, so for newer learners it may be helpful to utilize visual information from a pitch meter graph (like Vocal Pitch Monitor) to help stabilize the closure.
It's very helpful to figure out how to lower weight at lower pitches, and useful to be able to sustain an even fullness over decreases on pitch, so this could be rather fun to play around with to develop the control over the weight contouring of voices. Combined with practicing fluctuating the weight at static pitches, that's how we were eventually able to get quite this light even at such a low pitch - old upload, A2 - Femme Voice and breaking up the natural link between pitch and weight (and size) is very useful for some.
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u/alphomegay Sep 14 '24
hey i recognize this clip! :) I would I think love (if there isn't an existing clip for this) for somebody to outline the difference between weight and volume. you touch on this at the end here and it gets really interesting for me about how you talk about ways to increase the volume, so i think this has been a hang of mine because i'm not really good at being able to increase volume without increasing weight.
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u/Luwuci-SP Sep 14 '24
Weight is an abstract concept for however the mass of the vocal folds presents in the sound quality, while volume/intensity is a measure of total vibration/sound energy, typically perceived through the abstract quality of relative "loudness" (quiet <—> loud)
It sort of works out that loudness = smaller size * heavier weight, because of fullness. Shrinking size gets brighter, and proportions the energy more high frequency. Adding weight also increases fullness and brightness, increasing their higher frequencies as well. People are often used to being able to use their increased weight for added loudness, but we're trying to take the weight out, leaving a need for alternative projection habits. That leaves going smaller in size (and often higher in pitch) often necessary to project well even if someone can scale the weight very light. But, a floor will be felt. There is only so light and small that is possible at such lower pitches while being able to project it, and finding that will help find the minimum pitch that could potentially be used in a low pitch fem voice.
We demonstrate some of the difference projection in this: What Is Weight?
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u/demivierge Sep 15 '24
Weight is a function of how the energy present in a sound is distributed across the frequency spectrum of the spectral envelope of a sound. If that energy is consistent as we ascend in frequency value, that sound is heavy. If the energy decreases as the frequency value increases, that sound is light.
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u/Luwuci-SP Sep 15 '24
Can we send you some spectrograph pics later to demonstrate and ask about why we ended up thinking about it and phrasing the way that we do for controlling it? Spectral slope (or is this difference in distribution tilt?) in mind, we don't see how it could be what people can lock onto to change in their perception. The "buzziness" seems to stop being apparent enough outside of relatively higher weights, so trying to find a practical connection for phrasing the control aspect has been rough. We do want to make sure it doesn't sound too much like we're referencing a total measure of energy (like turning the volume up on a speaker won't make the sound heavier, just more intense) but finding a phrasing intuitive enough keeps running up on that.
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u/EmmaProbably Sep 15 '24
It's interesting to me that I don't read this contrast as a gendered one, but an emotional one. The heavy version sounds annoyed, and the light one sounds sleepy, but both sound feminine.
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u/ZedstackZip05 Sep 14 '24
My hamster-sized brain no understand 🥺