This Fantasia Fair had a surprisingly intense focus on voice.  Three speech pathologists were in attendance, and 4 seminars on offer, as well as private sessions available.

I took full advantage.

My personal assessment of my female voice is that it is not bad, but could stand improvement.  I wanted a professional assessment, as well as some tools to use in order to better myself.

So, I met privately with one of the professionals.

The session began with her engaging me in conversation about myself and my interests, while, unbeknownst to me, a spectrometer was measuring my voice.

The results were fascinating, and gratifying to a degree.  My voice pitch is right in the middle of the female range.  So far, so good.  In fact, when I was speaking thoughtfully, other factors fell pretty well into expected feminine patterns.

Women tend to vary their pitch more and speak more slowly than men, and that is what I was doing until the subject turned to something more intense – and then you could see the range narrow and speed pick up.

Interesting…

Obviously, there is a guy somewhere inside me that emerges if I am not self-aware enough.  It happens with posture, it happens with attitude, and it happens with voice.  Something to work on.

The other thing I need to focus on is resonance – the strength of my voice.  I have a pretty loud male voice, but I will need to exercise my voice in the female range in order to be able to speak forcefully as a woman.  The trick is to achieve volume without harming my voice.

I’ve got all kinds of exercises now.  Add them to my exercises for staying in shape, for posture, makeup etc., and sheesh!  It really takes a lot of work and commitment to do this female thang!

Ah, but it is a labor of love… true love!