Softness and breath management
Throughout my 16 years of career, I have worked with people who wished to modify their vocal gesture in order to achieve more femininity, to find harmony in their voice and in their way of expressing themselves. It is worth noting that, among all the vocal parameters involved in my training, volume is one of the most altered parameters when seeking to feminize a voice.
During all these years, I have detected on several occasions that when a patient wants to feminize her voice on her own, she lowers the volume when she speaks. This happens for two reasons: the patient wants to hide the sonorous characteristics that link her speech to a certain masculinity, and on the other hand, she seeks a softness affiliated with femininity.
On the other hand, after many years of study, research and experience, I have found out that it is not only a matter of reducing the volume in speech, but that this reduction in volume must necessarily be associated with a management of the murmur and a finer and less marked articulation. This is where what I call “softness” comes in. Defined as an acoustic parameter of the voice or speech, it allows us to attribute a character associated with the concepts of pleasure, calm, non-aggressiveness, moderation, femininity?
Linked to articulation, to breath management, to the way of expressing oneself, softness becomes a synonym of control, of non-tension, of muscular eutony. In short, a more feminine speech will be achieved when softness is applied.
Murmur management
In relation to breath management, it is true that the Astudillo method does not work on breathing as such. I am against training sessions that make patients impatient with sessions where posture, breathing, relaxation, etc. are worked on in isolation. From my point of view, the only thing that this type of session achieves is to demotivate the patient and does not achieve the objectives of feminization or vocal harmonization set. In other words, I work on the management of the murmur implicitly in the exercises that I propose during the sessions.
Indeed, this work is fundamental because it will allow the patient to control his/her way of expressing him/herself through the air that he/she will expel and through the production of sound. I usually work on breathing management together with exercises in which sound and air are combined. The aim is therefore to achieve a softer, more relaxed, less abrupt, less marked, finer and more specific speech, speech and way of expressing oneself.
Screaming: a trauma to the vocal cords
I have many patients who are afraid of seeing their old way of expressing themselves reappear when they face reflex acts such as coughing, laughing, sneezing or screaming. Moreover, many patients ask me to teach them how to scream femininely. However, it is crucial to keep in mind that screaming represents a trauma to the vocal cords and the laryngeal apparatus, and must therefore be avoided.
Therefore, during the sessions I train the laryngeal gymnastics in order to increase its resistance and elasticity. During the sessions, I also work on increasing the volume during speech, especially with people who regularly project their voice, such as people who use their voice professionally: teachers, speakers, etc.
It is true that, with the Astudillo method, the laryngeal musculature is worked deeply and the resting position of the larynx is altered, therefore, all reflex acts are influenced in the patient without having to work on them. And of course, the scream is included.
I remember a patient who, a few months after working with me, sent me a message explaining an experience she had just had : she had gone on a roller coaster with a friend and, terrified, had been screaming during the whole ride. When they got off the ride, her friend told her that her scream had been super feminine, but she, a victim of panic, hadn’t even noticed. When my patient saw how she screamed in some videos recorded by the owners of the attraction, she informed me with great joy that her scream was indeed totally feminine and, of course, totally natural.
Every day I receive more anecdotes like this one, which shows that my method works deeply on the vocal gesture and manages to influence the patient’s expression. For this reason, in my sessions I do not spend time working on these reflexes because I know that they will be implicitly and automatically feminized in a natural way. I also believe that a reflex action cannot be rectified consciously or that, in any case, it is preferable for it to be modified involuntarily.
Volume reduction: a real obstacle for the transgender woman
80% of the patients who contact me to feminize or harmonize their voice, present an alteration of the volume. This decrease in volume is a real disadvantage in their lives because, indeed, a person who does not dare to speak at a conversational or acoustically perceptible volume will be constantly faced with a demand from listeners to repeat themselves in their speech.
I also have many patients who prefer not to speak, who hide behind looks or gestures so that their voice is not perceived. Sometimes, this decrease in volume has been dragging on for years and becomes a real obstacle, sometimes reaching a state of disorder that needs to be rehabilitated.
In my sessions, I always try to restore that sound balance, as I consider it essential that my patients can gain the necessary confidence to lose the fear of expressing themselves in public. It is important to know that my main goal is to allow my patients to express themselves freely, without fear. For this, it is essential that each patient listens to her voice, perceives naturally and without thinking about vocal expressiveness, emotions, and that this voice is complete, that the volume adapts to all situations of her daily life and, above all, that it does not represent a disadvantage in her life.
In short, volume is one of the most important parameters in feminization training and voice harmonization, so it is essential to work on it, to harmonize it, but above all to optimize it according to the patient’s personality. In fact, the volume is associated with the emotional and vocal personality of the patient, so it must always be worked with the aim of finding a coherence and a personalized harmony according to the expressive personality of the patient.