“Middle C”

Ftm singer Tristan Whistan documents his voice change.

CBC Radio One 690 AM, 88.1 FM and Sirius 137.

Very good. If you miss this, it might be available by their podcast….

Phoenix Wisebone

http://itsnotmyfault.files.wordpress.com/2009/01/quantifyingtheimpactofandrogentherapyonthefemalelarynx1.pdf

The symptoms of what Constansis labels as “entrapped vocality,” such as persistent hoarseness and the inability to access and control certain areas of vocal range were attributed to a) an inadequately enlarged larynx, b) age, and c) the early onset of laryngeal cartilage ossification. I would like to comment on these one by one.

To this date, no representative ENT (ear-nose-throat) measurements have ever been done on pre-T transmen and the same transmen after 1year or 3 years on T so accounting for any change with the (lack of a) dimensional change is purely a hypothesis. If indeed as Constansis observes his “larynx had indeed grown wider” we still know virtually nothing about the vocal folds and their behaviour, as the (command of) pitch is a function of the length (back-front dimension), thickness (top-bottom dimension) and tension of the vocal folds most importantly, and only secondarily a function of the width.

Now onto age and a somewhat related measure, the onset of laryngeal cartilage ossification. As it is noted in the ENT literature, the onset of ossification (or calcification of the cartilage) is put anywhere between the ages 20 and 80 without any strong gender or ethnicity predictor. In a study of excised larynges they found late teens with partial ossification (some cartilages were, some weren’t) and heptugenerians without any form of ossification. As faster-than-normative ossification in the laryngology literature is connected to hoarseness only in cases of osteaosarcoma and chondrosarcoma of the larynx (i.e. serious tumours), or arithritis, the assumption that ossification is responsible for hoarseness and vocal instability in transmen is not supported by the literature and possibly needs further clinical research.

After this short reflection I would like to suggest three other causes for the above mentioned symptoms besides or in place of the above mentioned.

Hoarseness and vocal instability are very common, documented symptoms of vocal abuse and vocal fatigue. Complaints such as “I cannot project at my (new) comfortable pitch level” or “My voice gets tired by the afternoon” and “People have a hard time understanding me in a noisy room” may may stem from insufficient breathing management (think binding!) and the “usual suspect” of trans male speech, that is, creaking. Creaking happens when, trying to sound low(er), people lower their pitch to the pitch floor and often drop into a grating gravelly voice quality. Sustained creaking not only taxes the vocal folds and makes them “raw” but also creates the impression that the speaker is trying to sound low — and can’t.

The vocal instability (voice breaking, cackling laughs, etc.), as long as it is temporary, is a natural outcome of a re-adjustment process. Your vocal muscles are getting used to the new weight and new thickness of your vocal folds that grew heftier due to T. You will have to find your chest voice, your head voice and you have to re-discover where exactly the two meet — that is your voice breaking point. Around that pitch you’re the most likely to have lesser control over what comes out of your mouth. But as most everyone recommended: practice gently, practice constantly, and go see a speech pathologist.

Another recursive issue is the pitch drop and the change in pitch range during transitioning. In my study I have been following 7 transmen in their first year of transitioning regularly measuring their pitch and pitch range (usually once in every T shot cycle). So far, as the sample is limited, it is not possible to predict how much the pitch floor or the habitual pitch will drop. How much of a range you end up with, on the other hand, is possibly less of a function of physiology than identity. It is noticeable that some transmen are not comfortable exploring the upper end of their pitch ranges (either in speech or singing) for fear of sounding less male or more female. This may create the impression that these transmen lost their upper range and their total pitch range has decreased. In clinical practice, especially in the hands of an unassuming practitioner, this would be cause for treatment. It was also observed that typically the more gender variant the speaker is, the more comfortable they were at higher speaking pitches. These speakers could comfortably speak at a lot lower pitch, but they (consciously or unconsciously) choose not to do so. To give an example imagine the stereotypical gay cisgender male voice or the gay transgender male voice.

Finally, my research has shown that there is one more physiological feature that we perceive speaker gender by about as strongly as we perceive pitch: the length of the vocal tract. This length, the one from your lips to your larynx, is creating the so called amplified harmonics or formants in your speech. Whether these formants lie will tell the listener about your height and your gender.

Right now I am in the process of running an online voice satisfaction questionnaire targeting transmen only. If you have questions you would like to see asked in the questionnaire, or you would like to take the questionnaire, please contact me at vica@rice.edu.

There is more tension in my voice compared to before T, and I believe it is because I am still learning to use my “upgraded” vocal chords. My tone is as good as pre-T, though, and I’m able to match pitch just fine. My breath support has gone down, but this could just be a matter of practice.

I believe that both taking singing classes prior to T and the low dose that I am on has helped my voice to transition smoothly thus far. I have not had any cracking or breaking.