Voice pitch and accent training.

I have a slightly feminining, or should I say, young or boyish voice, and I’m by no means a young boy (I’m 28). I was wondering, hopefully this is the right forum to talk about this in, what I could do to change the pitch of my voice so that it’s more appealing and masculine, and if anyone had any experience with this. I would really love to do this without having to pay a speech therapist and all.

Also, I have a sort of hick accent (which only compounds my problem, really). However, if I had a lower pitched voice it might not be so bad, but I would definitely like to work on that, too.

Again, hope this is the proper forum to post this in. I’ve started PEing lately (mainly focusing on power stretches at the moment) and I’m trying to sort of change my self image by doing something for myself.

Practice death metal screaming/growling. :P

Just find the tone you wish to speak in and keep talking in that tone. Habit changes many things. The more you talk in a different tone, the more you get used to it. I don’t know if there is a technical way of saying how it should be done or a better way, but it worked for me. For years people made fun of the way I talked. “Why are you trying to talk so sexy?” I swear I never was. It was just the way I talked. And lord forbid when I was on the telephone. So I started changing the level in which I spoke and the tone, I guess. Slowly but surely, I was speaking as I do today. Yet, sometimes I think I sound rather harsh because this is not the voice I was meant to have. Sometimes we just have to be who we are meant to be because late on in life we’ll strive to be that person again and it will be lost from being who we thought everyone else thought we should be.

Though anna, your voice is sexy, the voice overs in the videos section is nice :D

Try singing low notes and getting the sound into the chest cavity. When you speak, is the sound all in your face, the throat or the chest? Try and move the sound down to the chest a bit without straining anything, and that might make it sound deeper. Also, try using less air to make the sounds, as the more air you’re using, the higher you can go! That’s what I find anyway, or did, when learning how to sing - but I’m a crap singer, so perhaps don’t take my advice!

Research khoomei.
http://khoomei.com

As a side note, you shouldn’t sing in your chest voice. Aim for the ‘mask’ of your face, which means to imagine your nose as a rhino horn and project the sound into there. Your nose should kinda buzz when you sing in this way.
A good way to find the best way is to bend over at the waist and hum…yeah, I know that sounds perverted, but it works. You should notice a definite change in your tone.
When you see singers on stage bend over and scream or sing into the mic, you probably think they’re showing emotion and passion that way, but it’s just a trick so they can get their voice into the proper placement - that ‘rhino horn’.

Anyway, look into khoomei and give it a shot. There are some free lessons somewhere online, but I can’t find them right now.

well i had that problem .. when i was younger.. my voice didn’t change right so it was really embarrassing. I don´t know how things are in your country , but here , you can go to a hospital and meet with the speech therapist. ( if they have one , you have to look for the right hospital ). It´s free , and he/she can help you out. That´s what happened to me. I never payed a cent.

The cheapest access you can get would be a Voice and Diction class, also known as Voice and Articulation. Almost every college that has theatre classes teaches them. If you find one at a community college level they are very affordable. I had this class and another called Oral Interpetations of Literaure about 4 years ago when I went back to school. The woman who taught it was an adjunct, who also had her own Speaking/ Voice Therapy company, so I really got a bang for the buck I paid. I took the class to fill in a required set of communication electives for my associates degree. It was suggested for those going into broadcasting and related degrees.

Thanks guys, this is a lot of really good info. It looks like a speaking class is the route I’m going to be taking. I was using my microphone, listening to my voice, and attempting to imitiate another persons voice (dunno who they were, just have an .mp3 of them talking), wasn’t working that well, but maybe I’ll try a little harder. :)

i still think you should go to a professional therapist ( hospital ) , i know this for a fact because i had a much bigger problem then yours. And those speak classes , well.. they arent ideal for what you want.

Try taking drama classes as well actors have to change the pitch of there voice a not