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Ready to refine your resonance with another round of voice impressions? Like, totally!
So far, you've been working to brighten the timbre of your voice by raising your larynx and tongue to shrink the size of your vocal tract. But that doesn't always translate into sounding more feminine. If you want to sound feminine, you're going to have to get really specific with the way your tongue moves inside your mouth, to hone your oral resonance. That is, you'll have to fine-tune the way you say all your vowels and consonants - your articulation.
Fortunately, there's a fun way to do this! To put it simply, you want to talk like a Valley girl. Watch video 1 to hear what a stereotypical Valley girl sounds like. Not only do they rival Disney princesses in terms of their extreme intonation, they also brighten their vowels to a much greater degree than you'll hear in any other American accent (and if you have a British accent, try imitating the brighter vowels of an Australian accent instead, as in video 2).
Some vowels are naturally dark in resonance (like "uh") because your tongue is low and there is more space in your mouth. Some vowels are naturally bright (like "ee") because your tongue is high, leaving a small amount of space in the back of your mouth. What Valley girls do, and what you want to learn to do yourself, is to replace each vowel sound in your speech with a slightly brighter vowel. Your "oh" becomes "uh", your "uh" becomes "eh", your "eh" becomes "ih", your "ih" becomes "ee" and so on, as in video 3. These are called vowel mods.
For a Valley girl, "ummm..." becomes "emmm..." and "lah-eek, toh-duh-lee" becomes "lih-eek, teh-dih-lee" - try saying each one! Then see if you can say them with vowels that are in between the two extremes - that's the sweet spot. Whatever your accent, the key is to push your tongue up and forward and just use the front for articulation. It helps to close your jaw so your teeth are almost touching, to make it impossible for your tongue to drop too low.
There are also consonant mods, because consonants can be brighter or darker too. Consonants interrupt the flow of air from your lungs, by temporarily blocking your vocal tract with your lips, tongue, or soft palate. A heavier, more intense interruption will generally come across as more masculine, while a lighter, more subtle articulation will come across as more feminine.
For example, if you explosively say "bah!" in disgust, it will sound more masculine. If you quickly say "bababababa" it will sound more feminine, especially if you tighten your lips together to minimize the movement. If you say "arr!" like a pirate, it will sound more masculine. If you stop your tongue halfway through saying that heavy "r" sound, it will sound more feminine, especially if you also raise the back of your tongue at the same time to shrink the space in your mouth. Watch video 4 to hear the difference between a masculine and feminine "r" and "s" sound.
Your homework is to spend some time every day trying to talk like a Valley girl, in addition to all your other exercises! Start with Lumpy Space Princess in video 5. Pause after each line she says and try to repeat it with the same vowel mods - "to get it" becomes "teh get eht" in her accent. Then try it again with a whisper. Do the same with video 6, video 7, and the Valley girl video above. Don't worry too much about pitch, but pay close attention to the sounds of each vowel and consonant.
When you start to feel comfortable with these vowel and consonant mods, try incorporating them into your other voice exercises as well. You don't have to go to such an extreme that you sound like a Valley girl, of course, but play around with them to see how they change the sound! At the same time, focus on clenching your tongue (like "key") to brighten each vowel and consonant as much as possible, while keeping your lips tight and your jaw almost closed to minimize the space inside.
Now, if you want to be heard above a lot of background noise, without relying on the booming strength of a masculine voice, you'll need to add a piercing brightness that will give your voice more power and clarity while also making it more feminine at the same time.
The secret is a singing technique known as vocal twang. It sounds almost like nasal resonance, where the sound goes through your nose, but it's not. Instead, vocal twang is created by squeezing what's known as the aryepiglottic sphincter (or AES), which is right at the top of your larynx, above the vocal folds. You can see and hear the difference dramatically in video 1, showing the throat of a female singer as she first hums (nasal resonance), then sings normally, then sings with a very pronounced twang.
The best way to learn this is through imitation. Quack like a duck, cry like a newborn baby, or say "I AM A ROBOT" in your best robot voice. They may not be pretty, much less feminine, but all of these are great examples of vocal twang pushed to an extreme. And you want to learn the extreme and then dial it back from there - it's a lot easier that way. So take a moment to try a few quacks, to cry like a newborn, and talk like a robot. Then watch video 2 and follow along with the singing exercise at the end.
Next, open up the Spectroid app, and say "uhh" in a relaxed voice. Notice where the yellow lines appear on the scrolling spectrograph. Then try saying "quack" like a duck or "I AM A ROBOT" in a robot voice - something with a lot of vocal twang. If you've done it correctly, you'll see a bright yellow band of lines appear past the 1000 Hz mark. The more you constrict the AES, the brighter the yellow band will be and the more you'll hear a harsh edge to your sound. Watch video 3 for a great example of this, starting with a dark "uhh" and gradually raising the larynx, raising the tongue, and then adding the vocal twang for maximum brightness.
Your homework is to spend a few minutes every day practicing your vocal twang, perhaps right after your open quotient warmup. With Spectroid running, try to imitate the video and say "uhh" in a relaxed voice and then gradually slide into a harsh, twangy "ehh" like a duck quacking, and back down to a relaxed voice again. Watch the spectrograph and try to get that yellow band as bright as possible when you add the vocal twang. Then pinch your nose shut too, so you don't accidentally cheat by using nasal resonance instead of twang! You should be able to do this just as easily with your nose pinched shut - otherwise you'll end up sounding like Squidward, as in video 4.
Then try adding different degrees of twang to your speaking practice, to see how it feels and sounds. You could go all the way and sound like SpongeBob SquarePants, take it out completely like his friend Patrick, or add just a hint of it and sound, well, more feminine. See what you like!
Vocal twang is also really great for feminizing your singing, if you're into that. Skillful use of vocal twang can turn a weak falsetto into a powerful head voice, and increase your upper range by an octave or more. It's also the secret behind CeeLo Green's distinctive singing voice, combining a dark oral resonance with a lot of bright vocal twang and a bit of nasal resonance, as you can hear in video 5. If you start there and then brighten your oral resonance with a raised larynx and tongue, you can sound like a female singer. Seriously.
So far you've learned almost all of the little levers you can use to change the sound of your voice. But there's one (or two!) more to get familiar with, at the back of the throat. You want to learn to move your soft palate and your pharynx to shrink the space in your throat, just like you've used your tongue and lips to shrink the space in your mouth. The effect is subtle, but it can often make the difference between an authentically feminine voice and one that just sounds... off, somehow.
You can see a very brief overview of the technique in video 1. But to make it easier, you'll want to start with just the soft palate. Look in a mirror and say "ahh" and then "ung" and watch how the back of your tongue comes up, while the very back of the roof of your mouth (the soft palate) comes down slightly to meet it. When they touch, the air is blocked off from your mouth and forced through your nose instead, creating a hypernasal sound. Try the exercises in video 2 to learn to control your soft palate, and by extension, your nasal resonance. Generally, you want to reduce this nasality for a more feminine sound.
The next thing you want to learn is how to constrict your pharynx, or close your pharyngeal wall. Doing this will bring in the sides of your throat just below the soft palate (oropharynx), pushing your tonsils against the back of your tongue. How do you do it? Gargling. Say "ahh" while you tilt your head back and gargle, then tilt your head upright again and try to keep the sound going. Or say "ahh" from the top of a swallow-and-hold, or even a whisper siren. Eventually, you want to be able to say "ung" while sticking your tongue way out - the only way you can do that is to push in the walls of your oropharynx, because your soft palate can't reach the back of your tongue while it's stretched out of your mouth. If you talk at the same time, you will sound like Meatwad, as in video 3.
If you start with a Meatwad voice, and you bring your pitch up into a falsetto with a fair amount of nasal resonance and vocal twang and a lot of open quotient, what do you get? You get an Elmo voice, as in video 4. The reduced space in the back of the mouth and throat is what gives Elmo's voice its child-like quality. Of course, if you take that Elmo voice and bring the pitch down while constricting your pharynx as much as possible, you get a Smeagol or Gollum voice, as in video 5. For Smeagol, you want to constrict not only the oropharynx but also the hypopharynx, further down the throat, to create a dampened sound like a sob or an old man.
You don't have to take it that far, but if you add just a hint of oropharyngeal throat closure, you can make your voice sound younger and more feminine. This is most clearly demonstrated with a "loli" voice, as in video 6. If you whisper with a feminine vocal posture and then squeeze in the back of your mouth and throat a little, you can sound like a cute anime girl. Try it!
Your homework is to spend some time every day trying to talk like Meatwad and the other characters, by playing with your soft palate and pharynx position. And be sure to try whispering too, especially for the loli voice. You can download the Android app Echo (or Voice Back on iOS) and use it to record and play back your character voices, to hear how they actually sound. Don't worry about whether they match a specific character exactly, just see what sort of funny voices you can make!
Then try adding a hint of throat closure to your speaking practice, to see if you can use it to sound more feminine. If you're feeling brave, you can even record and play back your feminine voice experiments to help guide your practice. Good luck!
These are also important elements for singing feminization, especially for a voice like Britney Spears, which combines a fair amount of oropharyngeal constriction with a very hyponasal sound, as if from a stuffy nose. You can hear it exaggerated in video 7. Imitating that sound is a great way to learn to achieve throat closure while simultaneously eliminating nasal resonance.