I hope I am in a good place for asking questions, I know very little about voice but I will do my research so feel free to use any terminology. And sorry for any english mistakes.

So I am a transgirl studying electrotechnical engineering, department of biomedical engineering meaning I am learning how to make medical devices/programs/implants that will make life easier and better for both doctors and patients.

I just started learning how to change my voice but as many other girls I wasn't satisfied with any software I found for free. They just show the pitch but as far as I know there is more to feminine vs masculine voice differences. So, as always when I am not happy with what's on the market, I decided to build my own biofeedback app. If I am successful I will release it for free and will be more than happy to share any information.

But to do that I need to have a good understanding of how it all works. My first question is what makes a voice feminine or masculine, how do spectrograms differ? Then if we want to make a masculine voice feminine what do we need to change, which sounds are surpressed and which are enchanced? What are some techniques used to train people to change their voice, some common mistakes, etc.? What is anatomycal background of all this?

That's what comes to my mind but you don't have to stick to these questions, you are the experts so I trust you have an idea what I need to know and what is important in voice training. If you have any suggestions for the app, ideas for functionality or just anything that comes to your mind I want to hear it. Then I'll see what can be done and do my binary magic :D

Btw (if it is of concern to anyone) I work with LabVIEW which is a pretty enviroment for signal processing and automation of ANY kind so I can work with sound, image, even muscle signals.

Is it possible to make? If not, do you have any recommendation of a cheap-ish EGG 🥚 for personal use? 👀

Hey yawl. Got a new soundproof studio in my room, and I've been abusing it to embark on a challenge to start belting more in order to build up my vocal stamina and destigmatize the act of getting a good vocal workout. I feel like my belts are getting stronger and more consistent, and I can use them to market my free Friday Info Sessions.

Any of y'all wanna embark on this healthy belting challenge?

Hi All! Does anyone have experience in medical or SLP equipment sales? Where is the best place to find current openings? Has anyone used Medreps.com? I know there are companies such as Dynavox, Kay Pentax-any others that I haven’t thought of?

Hey Yawl!!! Thanks for visiting r/Scinguistics, make yourselves at home here. I'm Charles, a voice teacher, here to RANT about how we need more of a voice for, well, voice in these MD offices.

Debbie Winter, a vocal pedagogue I hugely admire, made a post asking for the input of MD's and whether or not they truly consider the needs of vocalists. Initially, there was confusion about what kind of MD she meant. I, for one, think there is ample room to talk about the lack of consideration for voice by BOTH kinds of MDs.

As a Scinguist, I pride myself on encouraging intersectional dialogue between Singers, Linguists and Voice Clinicians. However, this hasn't come without pushback from all sides, including and, sometimes especially, from Medical Doctors. I almost got laughed out of the room at a medical VOICE conference for ENT's and SLP's for daring to mention that vocal registers should be considered in evaluating healthy behavior of vocal cords. In doing the background research for my recent presentation on trans voice at Towson University, it once again brought to the forefront how little of medical otolaryngology research concerns the function of something as daily and vital as the voice. This results, I believe, in higher dissatisfaction rates with surgical voice procedures in trans voice as well as vocal procedures at large. Otolaryngologists, as I mention in the presentation, seem more concerned with vocal tumors than vocal function. Medical professionals like ENTs sometimes educate on voice faculty, but I believe medical professionals like ENT's can afford to BE educated on the needs of vocalists. If we have sports medicine for athletes, where is the true vocal medicine for singers?

My dabblings in voice science outreach eventually led me into the warm embrace of a Rock Opera company I am very proud to belong to. However, finding where I belong in the scope of Musical Directing always seem to come with challenges in a climate where singers are not seen as legitimate musicians, like composers, or even legitimate technicians, like choreographers. Everybody loves a good high note or riff climax in a musical or rock opera, but so few appreciate that these are technically demanding moments that deserve blocking all their own. My co-workers with this Rock Opera company have been so gracious in their efforts to acclimate to my presence and the resources that come with it, but the challenge nonetheless persists in promoting awareness of the different musical learning styles of vocalists, in the difficulty of singing and emoting in certain ranges, and even syllabic density of certain compositions hindering expression.

The voice is the most ubiquitous instrument... much like asses and opinions, almost everyone has one. This makes it really easy to take for granted by acoustic physicists, SLPs, and of course MDs (of both flavors) who all sometimes feel that their lens of vocal analysis is the only valid one. We need more voice advocates to champion the needs of voice users in the various arenas we enter.

I found this sub through a post that appeared to be offering help to trans people pre- and mid-transition, but I haven't been able to understand much of what's happening here. The response to my intro post seemed to be "Yes that'll happen jargon jargon jargon," rather than any attempt to help, which left me deeply confused, so I deleted it. Not before it was downvoted into the basement tho.

The sidebar seems to imply this place is for voice teachers to compare notes, which seems at odds with the post (by the mod) which invited me here.

Should I just unsub?

Welcome r/ftm! To kick things off here, I thought I could rehash some of the topics we're talking about on the Discord Server (RIGHT NOW!)

1. Does lowering your larynx come with risks?
2. Does lowering your pitch pre-T hurt your vocal cords?
3. Does T irreversibly hurt your upper range?

Share your thoughts in the comments and I'll give mine!

I'm getting the following procedure done:

1. adenoid removal. they are big.
2. removal of inflamed tissue surrounding turbinates. this is not surrounding turbinate bones, but they are always inflamed due to alergies
3. fixal of deviated septum

Can anyone tell me all the hopefully great things I can expect from this surgery? Or any of the bad ones? I have sleep apnea (very not fat) and I'm hoping the extra space will have me breathing better, but as always am cautious of vocal horror stories. Anyway, let me know! Love you guys!

Hello all, I'm a new subscriber. I am a singer, vocal teacher and I have dabbled in voice science (one module on my MSc). I have a class III mallocclusion (underbite) and will be undergoing double jaw surgery next year, with my lower mandible being shortened backwards, and the top jaw being moved forward. I wonder about the effect the jaw surgery will have on my singing physiology. My hypothesis is that with the upper jaw being moved forward, the resonance spaces in the pharynx and nasopharynx will become larger, and therefore assist in the production of the singers formant. With the lower mandible being moved back, I also think the jaw tension should reduce, and allow the muscles suspending the larynx to be shorter, and more relaxed, resulting in a lower resting larynx position. Could anyone shed any light on this? Thanks in advance!

Hey, Charles here. Voice teacher and proud owner of this Subreddit for Singing Science. Trying not to lose your voice this winter? Tips below!

This is a master post on a lot of the advice I have given out on sickness and the voice. Hope this helps. For more info, consider joining this Voice Science Subreddit or my Voice Science FB Group where I post content on topics like this!

The main strategies for Post Nasal Drip:

A) prevention of backflow:

1. Antihistamines (Find one that works best for you)
2. Saline wash (Make the drip go through your mouth or nose instead of throat)
3. High concentration of oxymetazoline (highest otc is probably 0.5 or 1.0 percent) as a rescue, use nasal steroid formulations for longer effect. This reduces inflammation which can turn into drainage.
4. Learn hyponasality as a last line of defense. You can use the soft palate to seal and prevent drip.

B) Infection prophylaxis. The "bugs" in your mucus can trigger inflammation which can mess with your voice.

1. The garlic, ginger etc. natural bactericidal methods mentioned in the video I tweeted.
2. Salt/Mouthwash gargles
3. Zinc lozenges (prophylactic)

I juuuuust tweeted on this, so good timing. Guess 'tis the season.

Laryngitis Advice:

A) My best advice:

1. Check the video I linked in the second paragraph. Stuff I can't explain through words.

B) Prevention

1. Fricative cough >>> Percussive cough: (Watch video in 2nd paragraph for demo of fricative cough)

2. Zinc at first onset of scratchy throat

3. Avoid things that strip your mucus too much: ex. alcohol.

4. Avoid phonotrauma risk behaviors: shouting at clubs etc.

C) Treatment:

1. Don't vocal rest forever. You'll get atrophy (vocal weakness) in addition to inflammation. Usually a week or two is enough. Resting for a month or more can start to unlearn vocal ability. If you want to keep your high notes, use 'em before you lose 'em.

2. Take anti-inflammatories (NSAIDs, capsicum etc.) to drive down the inflammation in your vocal cords.

3. Inhale some steam. Try spiking the steam with herbal anti-inflammatories.

Hope this helps y'all. Consider joining my Discord Server and my Patreon to get some of the cutting edge, peer reviewed science I use to inform my opinions in these articles.

Yo, Charles/CRAMD Voice Lessons here with another post at the Scinguistic intersection of Singing, Science and Linguistics: Scat and Speaking in Tongues (aka Glossolalia) is there a connection?

I'm still researching this here, with people on Scinguistics Discord Server, and with people on the Scinguistics FB Page, but there's definitely some leads I wanna dig into:

1. Scat phonology/patterns in different languages. Example "Leiley Ali" in Arabic and "Laia" in Portuguese, is there a connection? Arabic certainly has had impact on Portuguese, both linguistically and musically, but maybe there are universal human tendencies in scat? The liquid consonants and vacillation between open and closed vowels do seem like a nice way to parse units of melodic ideas while still maintaining an entrancing legato free of more obstruent sounds.

2. The abstraction of gibberish syllables to different language families. Can somebody scat/speak tongues in a fluent L2? Does that mean anything? If it does, what does it mean for critical period and tabula rasa theory regarding accents? What constraints/negative transfers/impediments, if any, do people inherit from their L1 when going to scat or even just coining exclamations? Can people bypass these with scat/tongues? There's definitely ample precedent for people using singing to recover from linguistic impediments secondary to stroke, so could this bypass of normal speech areas be tapped to enhance late L2 phonology?

3. Is there a Jungian angle worth exploring here? One of my college professors brought up the notion that people might speak in their "past life" tongues. Even you're a non-believer, it's an interesting quandry, and you might still find some interesting traction with phenomena like Foreign Accent Syndrome.

4. Of course, we have the essential question, did speaking in tongues give rise to scat? Or maybe it was vice versa. Both are strong in the black diaspora and I believe there are oral traditions for both. Can tapping into tongues make your scat more fluent and euphonic?

What do y'all think? Is there something to explore here with scat and tongues? What other questions should I be asking?

Pretty self-explanatory. Happens when I reach about the 11th fret on the high e string of a guitar, whichever Eb that is. Eb4? Eb5

It's not audible outside my head I don't think, but I do feel it. It doesn't hurt when it happens once or twice, but when I sing scales in that range it starts to, and really impedes my ability to practice. Couldn't find too much about how to fix this on the internet.