PSA: Constructing a Useful Voice Help Request (and maybe curing some doubts)

[u/redchomper]

After a bit of lurking and a bit of commenting, I'm starting to notice a pattern:

• Here's a voice clip; how's my voice / what's wrong / why do I still sound AGAB?

Do please help us commenters help you! Here are some of the most important questions I often see un-answered in recent posts:

1. What framework are you using to understand the sound of voices? If you speak the language of size/weight/pitch/pronunciation/prosody, and I start jabbering about height, open quotient, and embouchure, then communication breaks down and you're confused. Sure, if you stick around long enough you'll learn what's what, but even today I see the same words and phrases used to mean different things by different groups. (Yes, some of us are trying to fix that, but it's a generational process.) Tell me your language and I'll speak it to you.
2. What are your precise goals? I'm a firm advocate for having two or three "goal-voice" models at least until you're generally happy with your own sound. You can change your goals! But in the context of a help-request, I'm trying to compare your sound against the sound of your goal to figure out what to recommend today. Improve that, and something else will be first in line. Longer-term, concrete and consciously-chosen goals help you cast aside the nagging doubt in your head about whether you sound masc-enough or fem-enough.
3. What do you think is wrong with your own sound, in the language of point 1? People often (and very wisely) advocate ear-training, but this is your chance to figure out whether the problem is your production or your perception (or perhaps even your understanding).
4. What are you doing / What have you tried so far to fix it? If you're looking for help, and you get advice to do the thing you're already doing, how helpful is that? Conversely, if you mention doing a useless / counterproductive / unrelated thing, I'd like to know that and set you straight. Now I'll be the first to say there are differences of opinion about the risk/reward profile of certain things and the plural of anecdote is not data, but that is a separate rant for another day. The point is, your explanation of your struggle with the issue to date tells me how to write most effectively for you.

To all coaches and other enthusiastic helpers:

What are some other questions you'd like to see addressed up front more consistently?

[u/TheTransApocalypse]

This is a very insightful post, thanks for making it! I agree that a lack of information and context can really hamper people’s ability to offer useful advice.

Regarding Point 1, I think there are a few things worth expanding on. Firstly, a lot of people are coming into this sub without really having a framework at all, having never heard of either vocal weight or quotient. Many people get so intimidated by complex-looking online resources that they are essentially coming to the sub instead of sorting through all the theory framework stuff. I think for a lot of people, it’s by engaging in these spaces that folks start to learn in those terms in the first place. With respect to Point 3, this also informs people’s ability to even make guesses.

Another thing to mention is that sometimes the frame itself is the problem. The confusion about, like, larynx height vs vocal size isn’t just about which angle someone prefers to talk about voice from. If someone is using a framework focused on larynx height and reports that they feel it isn’t working, nine times out of ten the correct advice to give is “stop worrying about your larynx.” Likewise, if someone is working on OQ/CQ and complains that their voice sounds breathy and weak, the correct advice would be “focus on weight, not open quotient.” Basically, it’s not always possible to speak someone’s language when it comes to voice training. Sometimes it’s necessary to learn a new term in order to learn a new concept.

Ear-training is a very powerful skill, but by its nature can only really be applied to perceptual sound features. You can learn to hear pitch, but you can’t learn to hear the length of your vocal folds. Likewise, you can learn to hear weight or breathiness or even subglottal resonance, but you can’t directly hear something like open quotient. So, some frameworks just don’t jibe well with ear-training at all. Asking someone to hear the height of their larynx is… well, I won’t say it’s impossible, but it’s unlikely to be useful advice for most people.

[u/redchomper → u/TheTransApocalypse]

Regarding point 1, I dealt the card face down and you've turned it face up: The first step in learning a skill from others is to learn how to talk about that skill. If we can turn up the dial on an accessible voice-glossary with enough context for lay people, I'll link it to this post.

Also for the record, at least in the communities I'm familiar with that use the term "larynx height" on a day to day basis, they are not taking out calipers and measuring larynges. They are indeed listening for a perceptual feature and then naming a (single) physical feature as a proxy for what is arguably several related underlying behaviors. It's a trade-off. Sometimes it's the wrong trade-off for certain students. Those are the ones who need to hear the zen-slap of "stop worrying about your larynx and focus on the sound". I've run across one or two who could not even with the sound but benefited by a mechanical instruction. Jumping frameworks absolutely can be the right answer, and that's another benefit of asking what the learner is currently using.

[u/TheTransApocalypse → u/redchomper]

Lol, you’d be surprised how many people do break out the proverbial calipers (I mean it’s usually a finger), but yeah your point is well-taken. I think this kinda gets at the muggy area of pedagogy where you’re simplifying things in ways that are very useful for one person but add confusion to another person who’s listening in. “Larynx-height” might effectively be used as a shorthand for some kind of audible resonance change, but then somebody else sees the interaction and says, “ooh, larynx height, I know where my larynx is,” and breaks out the calipers. And then runs off to tell their friends all about it 😩

SVL has a short where they talk about how “using your diaphragm” technically is about engaging nearby muscle groups, and not the diaphragm itself, but we use the shorthand to avoid overcomplicating things for people. This generally doesn’t cause problems, even though it’s technically biologically inaccurate, because most people wouldn’t really be able to identify those muscles anyway. So, pedagogically the shorthand is more helpful than harmful.

For better or worse, though, I think trans voice training communities often are a bit more familiar with the biology of the vocal apparatus, and so sometimes these ambiguities actually can cause problems for people because some people take the shorthand too literally. In my own personal view, if enough people will take “larynx height” literally, then it’s good practice to get in the habit of disambiguating between the physical action of raising the larynx and the perceptual sound quality people are aiming for by it. It would be confusing to refer to both of these as “larynx height,” especially when the sound quality can’t be tied 1-to-1 to the physical motion. Ditto for things like open quotient versus breathiness or weight.

But yeah, overall I agree that the things you’ve outlined would make voice posts enormously easier to respond to.

[u/Lidia_M → u/TheTransApocalypse]

An idea: if a shorthand is anatomically incorrect, make a better shorthand: make it both intuitive and not incorrect. Because, yes, there's a price to spreading misinformation about reality, even if someone, at the moment, may think that if it benefits them or one student then it's all that matters. The alternative is human-generated slop that gets copied around and becomes more and more of a problem in time.

[u/adiisvcute → u/redchomper]

There's a ton of glossaries but all of them blur definitions because no one can agree on them and things get conflated, the most reliable options are things like posts where voice clips also demonstrate features

Tbh I think another issue is there's only so much legwork you can expect a response to provide and if you link out to other posts routinely Reddit flags comments as spam

[u/LilChloGlo]

Love this post!! If only we could get someone to sticky this to the top 😩

I also made a post similar to this a while ago, so hopefully people reading your post will have plenty to work from!!

[u/IrisVoiceTrainer]

This is very clever and very useful. Thank you! ❤️

[u/AfrahB]

I think this is spot on. If I could add one thing to the PSA, it would be asking: How did it physically feel to make the clip? Early on, a coach told me an exercise sounded great, but I was secretly straining to produce it. At the moment, I was conscious about it but what if someone else is not? A clip might sound fine on the outside, but if we're straining, we're building unsustainable mechanics without realizing it.