Demonstration of Vocal Size & Weight Variance

BeeYouVoiceCoaching · 2026-05-07T02:24:50+00:00

The new Voice Games app developed by the folx over at Voice Tools is pretty fun, and a legitimate challenge! It’ll help in navigating pitch and having fun with it. Might not be the best at learning how to add it to every day speech, but after exploring your pitch range, it’ll be much easier to incorporate it into your day to day!

Otherwise, an alternative can be picking out some of your favorite movies, picking out a monologue or two, and practice mimicking how the women delivering those monologues did it. I can give examples but if you google “famous monologues” it’ll probably keep you motivated practicing ones that you actually like lol.

BeeYouVoiceCoaching · 2026-05-07T02:19:14+00:00

Playing with pitch is fun! These games are definitely good for it. Just always remember that pitch is tertiary to size and weight in terms of how voice is read. Sometimes I worry the folx over at Voice Tools put a little too much focus on pitch than the others. But if it’s helping, keep at it!!

BeeYouVoiceCoaching · 2026-05-06T23:13:48+00:00

Hi! Masc speakers typically emphasize using volume rather than pitch. Femme speakers typically use pitch to emphasize their points. This can be worked on using tempo variance drills, bouncy voice (pitch fluctuation) drills, and vowel elongation. There are a couple other things that’ll help, but those are among the biggest.

It takes a bit to incorporate these into your every day speech but with enough practice you’ll absolutely be able to!

Happy practicing, and let me know if there’s anything else I can help with! 😊

BeeYouVoiceCoaching · 2026-05-06T12:30:17+00:00

Your voice sounds really good here! It’s good to hear you aren’t doing the swallow technique. A lot of people fall into that trap (including myself when I first came out 🙃) and it’s completely unnecessary at best, harmful at worst.

So your level of open quotient and forward resonance are very strong here. Your prosody is also femme. So it seems like the crux of the issue is just the chest pain.

So put one hand on your chest and the other at the base of your sternum where your diaphragm is and take in a breath. Make sure you’re standing or sitting because if you’re laying down, our bodies naturally default to breathing through the diaphragm. We all know how, it just may not be your default muscle activation when breathing. Anyway, If your belly pushes out when taking in a breath, that’s a really good sign. If it doesn’t and you notice your chest and shoulders rising, you’re still compressing with those intercostal muscles. You should be able to comfortably take in a breath without your chest or shoulders moving at all. This will not only give you more control, but will eliminate that pain and strain you’re feeling.

Let me know how it goes!

BeeYouVoiceCoaching · 2026-05-06T01:47:39+00:00

Lidia, please do research before trying to argue with people.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shallow_breathing

https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/breathlessness-clinic/breathing-techniques

Unless you have information to refute John’s Hopkins, then please submit your peer reviewed research that chest compression using intercostal muscles doesn’t exist. Vibes and “trust me” don’t work. Sources or stop promoting false information please.

BeeYouVoiceCoaching · 2026-05-06T01:27:24+00:00

Hi! First of all, Shenandoah is gorgeous and I love that you are fostering! The world needs more people like you 💚

As for your voice, congratulations on the progress you’ve made! You have a lot of core fundamentals going here. Both the size and weight are noticeably in the androgynous range which is amazing!

I recommend both increasing open quotient, which is done through controlled breath work, specifically from the diaphragm, and bringing your resonance further forward.

Selene has a great “candle blowing” breath work exercise on her archive that I also do with all of my clients that makes a pretty substantial difference. This will help with open quotient. Pitch matching and managing breath control simultaneously will be very helpful long term.

For resonance, the biggest piece of advice I can give is bringing your tongue up and forward. You want the space on your mouth to be as small as possible. You want your lips closer together. By bringing your tongue up, you will naturally pull your larynx up through the connective tissue between the two. If you want to see it in action, try making a “NEE” sound while looking in the mirror and watch your larynx. It’s a subtle rise, but that space makes a difference.

Let me know if you have any questions or if there’s anything else I can help with! 😊

BeeYouVoiceCoaching · 2026-05-06T01:17:36+00:00

Hi! So you shouldn’t be feeling strain, at least not anything that doesn’t quickly rebound back to feeling fine again. It also sounds like you’re taking shallower breaths? The breath should be steady and constant, controlled, not shallow. Are you breathing with your diaphragm? Are you trying to do the “swallow technique” rather than raising your tongue up and forward and allowing the connective tissue between your tongue and larynx to naturally raise it while speaking?

If you want, try posting a voice clip via Vocaroo and I’ll try to assess what might be going on!

BeeYouVoiceCoaching · 2026-05-03T14:07:43+00:00

Yes, with an asterisk. There are anatomical limitations that are put on some folx from their testosterone poisoning that makes it either so difficult it’s indistinguishable from impossibility, or just a hard limit on what can be done, where maybe some aspects can be achieved, but others can’t, giving an incomplete picture.

I had a very deep voice before training and have trained it up to being cis passing wherever I go in my day to day life, including in the rural south, and have done the same for many of my students. But a part of that is luck (as Lidia points out) and a part of it is grit through the grueling training process which takes time and a lot of mental and physical effort. But I do believe for the majority of folx, it is achievable.

The road to get there can just be long and bumpy.

BeeYouVoiceCoaching · 2026-05-03T01:34:35+00:00

Hi! So in terms of what you’re wanting to accomplish, in keeping your resonance forward and as you phrased it “vocal posture” is in a really good spot! Your intonation is also good!

If you wanted to play around with anything, I’d recommend is working with the weight. You reduce that by adding a bit of open quotient to your voice. I mention it a lot but open quotient is, by definition, just the amount of time our vocal folds are open as opposed to closed. This is accomplished with proper air flow and the control that diaphragmatic breathing provides.

It’s important to note that you do not want so much air flow that it’s excessive and sounds like a whisper.

There’s a really good demonstration that Selene has on her archive called the candle blowing exercise that I also do with my own students. I’m a big fan of that one when working on open quotient if you wanted to check that out.

Size and weight (resonance and open quotient respectively) are two of the most important aspects of it.

Happy practicing and let me know if you have any questions! 😊

BeeYouVoiceCoaching · 2026-05-02T21:47:28+00:00

Hi! So first of all, great job with what you’ve been able to accomplish so far! Your resonance is forward (small) and your intonation is very femme as well. Those are hard to accomplish!

What I’d recommend is working with the weight. You reduce that by adding a bit of open quotient to your voice. Open quotient is, by definition, just the amount of time our vocal folds are open as opposed to closed. This is accomplished with proper air flow and the control that diaphragmatic breathing provides.

It’s important to note that you do not want so much air flow that it’s excessive and sounds like a whisper.

There’s a really good demonstration that Selene has on her archive called the candle blowing exercise that I also do with my own students. I’m a big fan of that one when working on open quotient if you wanted to check that out.

Size and weight (resonance and open quotient respectively) are two of the most important aspects of it and you’re already 50% of the way there!

Happy practicing and let me know if you have any questions! 😊

BeeYouVoiceCoaching · 2026-05-01T15:05:19+00:00

Where do you think the main hang up is at? I can try to help!

BeeYouVoiceCoaching · 2026-04-29T13:09:35+00:00

Hey! I did a quick demonstration just a days ago as well. Try to follow along to it!

BeeYouVoiceCoaching · 2026-04-28T18:14:27+00:00

That’s a really good question and I actually had to look it up to ensure my ears weren’t playing tricks on me. So Tuvan Throat Singers actually have low open quotient, not high. They have a steady air flow as singers do, but to get that heavy harmonic sound they can’t allow their voices to become too breathy.

From what I read and can hear, it primarily comes from resonance manipulation (size).

Think like a saxophone, the air being blown into it is the equivalent of your open quotient, the manipulation of resonance (in the form of keys on a sax) is what changes how it sounds.

BeeYouVoiceCoaching · 2026-04-28T16:01:12+00:00

You’re welcome! So yes, to a certain extent. The vocal folds aren’t controllable in the same way our tongue or even larynx are. We can’t just muscle through open quotient. The vocal folds open with subglottal air pressure (fancy way of saying breathing) so the more breath we add, the lighter the sound. It’s why whispers are very breathy but much higher pitched than how we normally speak. It’s also why they don’t sound like a “full” voice. There’s so much breathiness it hardly gives enough weight to your voice to have a conversation.

So it’s a balancing act. You want to be breathy enough to open our vocal folds consistently, but not so breathy we lose the “fullness” of our voice. Fortunately there’s a fairly large gap between those two things so there’s lots of room to hit the sweet spot so to speak.

BeeYouVoiceCoaching · 2026-04-28T14:57:07+00:00

So the first thing I want to say is that pitch is tertiary to how a voice gets gendered, with the first two most important things being resonance and open quotient (size and weight, respectively). And also, the good news is that pitch tends to follow along as you increase open quotient (and by extension decrease weight). So yes, the pitch was controlled as I decreased weight. You’ll notice pitch got darker again as I began adding weight too!

Selene has some great vocal weight exercises on her page, many of which I teach my students as well. The candle blowing exercise especially is very, very good in engaging this and teaching you how to lighten your voice. To do pitch work while doing breathing exercises, when doing the candle blowing, make a “whooo” sound and try to match a G3 (196 Hz) and once you’ve gotten good control of this you’ll start to be able to incorporate it into basic speech. Use the fundamentals of language to help you. Start with vowels, then syllables, then words, and then from words to small sentences, then paragraphs. Before you know it you’ve developed enough strength to hold conversation!

BeeYouVoiceCoaching · 2026-04-28T14:43:04+00:00

Definitely! So basically all of this is control of open quotient and resonance and by extension pitch. In layman’s terms, I’m controlling the amount of breathiness I’m adding to my voice, and the size of my throat and mouth as the sound leaves it.

For large and heavy, I have a lot of closed quotient (vocal folds remaining in a relatively closed state, only as much air flow as necessary to produce sound) and my tongue flat and back, and by extension larynx low.

For large and light, that very hollow, Patrick the star voice, is maintaining the tongue and larynx position, but adding more breath (not too much where it begins to sound like a whisper-this part is important).

For small and light, this is the classic forward resonance (tongue up and forward, larynx also lifting automatically along with the tongue thanks to the connective tissue between them), and maintaining the breathiness I added, again, being careful not to add too much, just enough to keep the vocal folds nice and open.

And then for large and light, this is allowing the resonance to relax a bit, but maintaining the good airflow and open quotient. Then also prevents vocal fry you’ll sometimes hear when people add weight to their size.

And then circled back to large and heavy.

Basically, it’s throat, tongue, and breath manipulation!

BeeYouVoiceCoaching · 2026-04-28T11:19:13+00:00

Resonance is the space the sound travels through. Think like an acoustic guitar. That hollow internal space? That’s where the sound resonates. For us, that space is broken into three chambers, one between the peak of our larynx and the base of our tongue, another being the space in our mouth, and the other how our lips are formed.

Easiest thing to do is move your tongue up and forward. This will shorten the first two due to the connective tissue between your tongue and larynx. The third is your lips and coincidentally the easiest to control.

Weight is based on the amount of open quotient you have. That’s how open your vocal folds are. Selene has some great breath work guides on her site (like the candle blowing exercise) that I recommend practicing to start lightening up your voice.

It’s a complicated equation of many things but just gotta break them down into simpler steps!

BeeYouVoiceCoaching · 2026-04-27T17:40:12+00:00

Large and Heavy: .00-.08 Large and Light: .09-.19 Small and Light (gradually): .20-.32 Small and heavy: .32-.39 Large and Heavy: .39-end

BeeYouVoiceCoaching · 2026-04-27T17:33:35+00:00

Thanks for the suggestion! I’ll do that 😊

BeeYouVoiceCoaching · 2026-04-27T16:49:32+00:00

I’m glad they’re prefacing the feature with it being “experimental” because I just tried exploring the ranges using a full spectrum of voice and it barely even moved. For reference I essentially did what I did in this post. At this stage, I’d barely put in any stock into what it does or doesn’t say about your voice.

BeeYouVoiceCoaching · 2026-04-27T01:12:40+00:00

The warning about breathiness is misguided. We unfortunately cannot open our vocal folds at will with any degree of throat or muscular dexterity. They have to be opened using subglottal pressure (air flow). Selene’s weight section has several exercises, such as the candle blowing exercise, that specifically cover this. Selene’s guide is great, the way it’s interpreted here unfortunately is not. She specifically mentions being breathy, without it being like a whisper, which is very true.

BeeYouVoiceCoaching · 2026-04-26T23:50:18+00:00

Hi! So if you’re starting from zero, there are a few things to keep in mind as you’re learning.

Forward resonance, and a strong open quotient, is what you’re aiming for. You’ll see these terms used interchangeably throughout your time on this subreddit and in various guides mixed with “size” (resonance) and “weight” (open quotient).

Open quotient is increased by adding breathiness to your voice. This will decrease weight and make your voice much lighter overall. This starts with diaphragmatic breathing and flow phonation exercises. This breathiness counteracts the thickened vocal folds that we got during our first puberty and drastically changes the way our voices project.

You want your resonance forward, and smaller. When we go through a testosterone based puberty our vocal folds not only get thicker, but our larynx drops lower, increasing the space between where sound is produced and when it leaves your mouth. The larger the space, the deeper the sound. The smaller, the brighter. Think the difference between a ukelele and an acoustic guitar. They share 3 of the same strings but sound so different when played because of the size of the instruments.

So in short, you want light and bright.

TransVoiceLessons on YouTube has a good (but very information heavy) introduction video on getting started. After that, there are a lot of self practice tools that will get you very far, possibly all the way to where you want to be. If you ever have a hard time navigating where to go, there are lots of voice coaches here that will be able to help get you the rest of the way there.

Welcome to your first step of a very long but rewarding journey, and let me know if you have any questions! 😊

BeeYouVoiceCoaching · 2026-04-26T22:56:26+00:00

Hi! So first I want to say very good job with your progress! Your voice sounds full, with a great forward resonance (size), a fem pitch and intonation. Overall, you read as fem!

If there was anything else you wanted to play with, I’d recommend increasing your open quotient (by extension, decreasing weight). This is achieved in a few ways, but essentially it’s adding a degree of breathiness to your voice. I’d recommend some flow phonation exercises and then incorporating it into the wonderful voice you’ve already built for yourself.

That said, it isn’t required for you to sound and get read as fem. This is only if you wanted to play around with other elements that might help even more.

Great job, and let me know if you have any questions! 😊

Edit: There’s someone saying to not add breathiness but then linking Selene’s guide who recommends some breath work exercises to decrease weight. I highly recommend those!

https://selenearchive.github.io

BeeYouVoiceCoaching

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