Alexa: ​ [00:00:00] This week, the Singing Teachers Talk podcast welcomes Stephen Davidson, a voice coach for trans, non binary and gender non conforming people, and the conductor of London Trans Choir. Stephen has taught voice for trans folks with the Speech and Language Therapy Department at the Tavistock and Portman Gender Clinic, and now teaches privately. 

He also leads master classes for voice teachers and voice users and has written a book which will be available in the autumn of 2024. Stephen is here to help us singing teachers and vocal coaches understand the transmasculine voice so that we can offer the most informed and supportive training in the voice studio. 

Stephen Davidson, at the time that we're recording this, the publication of your book, Transmasculine Voice, A Guide to Vocal Euphoria, is [00:01:00] imminent. So how are you feeling?  

Stephen: Delighted. I'm really pleased with how the book has come out. I think it's great. I also just know it's a much needed resource because there aren't any books specifically about transmasculine voice that I have ever heard of. 

So it's the best one, which is great.  

Alexa: And can you tell us what we might actually expect from it? 

Stephen: ,So it's very much aimed at voice users. I've tried to cut through as much jargon as I can, explain a little bit about how the voice works. , and then there's quite a lot of, exercises and little experiments, so that people can get to know their own voice in a new and slightly more thorough way, and a little bit of chat about T, , and I also, I did a little survey of over a hundred transmasc people, as part of the research for the book. 

So there's some statistics and a whole bunch of quotes because I feel like it's important to keep these things very,, community centered. You feel [00:02:00] warmer and fuzzier hearing what other people went through.  

Alexa: When and where can we actually get our copies then? 

Stephen: So it'll be out in October and you can get it on londontranschoir.com in the shop.  

Alexa: ,We are going to talk about transmasc voice now and particularly how the singing teacher can help transmasculine singers in their development. 

So to start with, can we just touch upon hormone replacement therapy and can you help us to understand what's actually happening at the larynx when singers begin using testosterone or T as you called it?  

Stephen: not all trans mass people go on T and some people have to wait ages before they get it. but for those who do, results vary, but broadly what happens is the vocal folds thicken. much like they would in a cis male puberty because they're thicker, they go slower, the pitch drops. , but unless folks are, lucky enough to start T quite early in life, the larynx doesn't really grow in the same way that it would in a cis male [00:03:00] puberty. 

So we don't always get the same lengthening quite as much,, and we don't have the automatic, bigger, boomier space for those vocal folds to, live in and operate in., I always say it's kind of like putting cello strings onto a violin. ,it's a slightly different voice type than anything else,, but really quite usable once you get the hang of it. 

Alexa: You mentioned about how not everybody uses testosterone. So for those who don't use that sort of hormone replacement therapy, what other ways are there that singers may be going through a voice masculinization? I've heard of things like thyroplasty, or maybe no intervention at all. So could you tell us about those options?  

Stephen: So it's technically possible to have surgery to lower as well as to raise the pitch of your voice. It's very, very rare. , I don't know anyone in the UK who offers it. , and in fact, I've only even heard of a handful of people who have had it. 

 [00:04:00] It's probably not going to come up. , when students who are transmasc or transfem come to me saying that they want surgery, I will always try to get them to try exercises first, because I feel like, firstly, surgery is dangerous, but also, secondly, It doesn't always do all of the work for you, , and much the same going on T doesn't always do all of the work for you either because there's a lot of vocal habits that need to be adjusted either way. 

 And I feel like people are often really surprised by how much they can adjust their voice, even if the pitch isn't gonna drop past a certain point. The weight and the resonance that we can use with practice,, , amakes big difference.  

Alexa: So for somebody who might not want to engage with any of that hormone replacement therapy intervention, what is a particular way that you might be able to help somebody find a more identifiable voice for themselves?  

Stephen: , So there's lots of things that will make a voice read as [00:05:00] masculine, and some of it sort of depends on language and accent and cultural context, but broadly speaking, The darker a sound is, the more masculine it will read. So in the first instance, we're thinking about creating as much space as we can. 

 a slightly lower larynx, a slightly wider pharynx, more space all the way around. , so I tend to start with lots of yawning and tongue stretching and loosening up of everything. attached to or near the larynx so that we can get it to sit a little bit lower without having to shove it down. , one of my favorite exercises is called Big Dog Little Dog and you just have someone pant first as if they're a chihuahua. 

Everything's really kind of,, small and tight and fast and if you speak as that chihuahua it's going to come out,, not just higher but brighter and then We imagine a really big dog like a St. Bernard, and the second that we [00:06:00] start to pant as that big dog. The tongue is down, everything is open and wide, the pharynx is very huge, the larynx is down. 

Our air is really slow and warm, it's coming from deeper down because we need to push a little harder to fill that bigger space. And if we speak as that big dog, we get a much darker sound automatically. the second thing that really helps is adding a little bit of vocal fold weight., my favourite way to get folks to do that Without adding too much strain or pressure is just to do crescendo decrescendos on comfy notes in the middle of their range and just really feel that thickness that they get when they're a little bit louder. 

Sometimes we'll talk about how the vocal folds work as well as part of that. Some folks really like to be able to picture it. and then the last thing that tends to pretty consistently read as masculine is having a smaller range of pitch, particularly when you speak., but to use a bit more volume for emphasis rather than a lift in pitch as a more feminine reading voice would. 

So there's a little [00:07:00] bit of poking around into how people would like to express themselves as well.  

Alexa: Do you find that those exercises are something that you will use anyway, even if somebody has said that they're using testosterone or they haven't necessarily mentioned that they want to sound more masculine, but it's maybe something that's integrated in the training anyway? 

Stephen: The first two, yes, absolutely. , even if someone is on T, especially if someone is on T, they, they need that bigger space to let , the lower voice have the room it needs to be acoustically efficient., And I think that as a voice teacher helping someone transition, anything you can do to help create space and relaxation and settle in a nice warm chest voice is always the first port of call, cause it just helps everything else go much more smoothly. 

Alexa: When someone has started using testosterone, can you help us to understand the [00:08:00] stages of development? So what might a teacher expect to see from the start date, through to a few years on.  

Stephen: Would that I could tell you, um, something I know from having done this for years and from the survey is that there's a rough average shape, but it's not really accurate enough to make a prediction about any one person's voice. 

,there are some people who go on a full dose of testosterone and it takes nine months for anything to shift. And there's going to be some people who go on a low dose and a week later, they've dropped an octave and they're outside cases, but. It happens enough that I would never, ever say, here's definitely what will happen to your voice on T because we just don't know.  

Broadly, the average bog standard is after a few months, the pitch starts dropping . In the first six months to a year, you'll get about an octave of range in the bottom of our chest voice and everything will kind of mosey on down [00:09:00] accordingly. , the head chest passaggio tends to be in particular quite rough. and higher notes up in the head voice and above will feel a little kind of airy and fluffy, things aren't quite connecting. Sometimes that range doesn't come down far enough to meet the top of the chest range once it's kind of done that big jump down. Some people have a perfectly easy and smooth transition and just steadily gain notes at the bottom and maybe they lose a couple at the top, but it stays really nice and flexible. 

,for some people, that whole middle bit will be really yodelly and cracky and inaccurate for ages, no matter how good their ear is. After that big jump, usually over the next couple of years, you'll have another couple gentle little drops. And I'd say three or four years is average for things to feel kind of fully settled. 

It's really similar to a cis male puberty, really. And a lot of the things that we do to manage that are similar. [00:10:00] But there's just that extra thing of needing to make a little bit more space again because we're not going to get that larynx growth.  

Alexa: Whereabouts in those stages of development, could you start to determine what sort of vocal fach you are or voice type you are for those who might be entering, say, a musical theatre realm?  

Stephen: I feel like after that first year we can make an educated guess. 

But things do keep settling. And particularly if someone's voice is changing slowly, if after a year, they seem like a tenor, I would check again in a year, just in case, , particularly if they're working harder than they should be for that. , it's worth mentioning that again, because of the smaller larynx, a lot of us have slightly brighter speaking voices. , and sometimes our sort of modal pitch where our speaking voice settles will be higher in relation to our singing range than it is for a typical cis man., so it's [00:11:00] really common for our speaking voices to sit like a fifth or a sixth above the comfortable bottom of our Singing range.  

so I would say definitely have a real thorough sing and I would, I would guess the voice type based more on where the passaggio sits than what you hear in a speaking voice.  

Alexa: What's the difference or is there a difference between testosterone in gel form compared to testosterone taken in, say, an injection on vocal impact?  

Stephen: There have not been any large enough or worthwhile enough studies for me to really say anything on that. It really just depends on levels and how people respond to it. 

But again, some people will take this much T and become a baritone overnight. And others, it's a real slow, drop. I would caution against trying to map any sort of, , type of testosterone or dosage onto, , a vocal [00:12:00] outcome that you're expecting because you're, you will be surprised.  

Alexa: Sure. And a lot of us will have the, the history form or the intake form as part of the beginning of a relationship with a singer. Is there anything in particular that you think should be asked on that form when it comes to inclusivity and particularly asking relevant questions sensitively to a trans singer?  

Stephen: I feel like broadly, medical stuff is off the table. You might have it come up in a lesson if someone mentions they're on T, but I wouldn't, aggressively question anything, particularly if someone hasn't outed themselves to you. 

you might find that transmasc students will sometimes wear a chest binder. It's a personal thing and I wouldn't necessarily bring it up. I would certainly not ask them to take it off as I have heard of teachers doing, rudely. But it's, it's an important piece of [00:13:00] kit for how people, feel in themselves. 

And also if they're going to wear it to be out in the world, it makes no sense to practice voice with it off because that's not how they're going to use their voice anyway. , if someone is wearing a binder or you think they are, Think of it as a great opportunity to talk about the diaphragm and not worry too much about,, the ribcage expanding and contracting as you might think it would.  

Alexa: It goes without saying really, doesn't it, that every person is individual. And as you've just explained with the testosterone journey, we can't necessarily pinpoint exact stages. So it might be the same for the technical journey I can only imagine in your experience as a teacher and as a trans man yourself, what technical difficulties arise more than others? 

Stephen: Well, in singers, the biggest one that I see is, , a little bit of pitch instability, especially around the sort of the middle of the range, sort of top [00:14:00] end of chest, bottom end of head, which for a lot of us tends to end up around middle C. , so trouble matching a pitch and holding it in a sustained manner. 

 Irritatingly, sometimes the better your ear is, the more you panic about that. And the more everything kind of tightens up to try to control it. , so I feel like the number one thing that trans singers in particular need is a slightly longer, slower warmup to help everything chill out and relax. 

, And just. Reassurance that a slight pitch wobble is fine. It's a data point. It's very, oh, very interesting that we're slightly flat today. We're not panicking about it and we're not clenching anything up to try and control it, , in the moment.  

Alexa: Can you give us a little insight to what that warm up, that slower kind of Relaxing, releasing, warm up, what it would include? 

Stephen: So I like to start off with a little bit of a physical warm up. I'll have people do tiny [00:15:00] little, , shoulder circles at first, just to check in with their shoulders. And then they can have a big one if they want. This is a tangent, but . , because being trans co exists with a handful of other medical conditions that will tend to just come up concurrently a lot of my students are hyper mobile. So, part of this warm up it, it's kind of stretching but I always try to emphasize that the goal is not to stretch as hard as you can, it's to check in with the muscles. A lot of us also have quite poor proprioception,, so that mind-body connection where you know where all your bits are and what they're up to. Firstly because a lot of us just have spent quite a lot of time consciously dissociating. , and again because of co occurring conditions, , it's really common for trans folk to have ADHD, autism, Ehlers Danlos Syndrome and POTS, a couple of which will cause both hypermobility and poor proprioception. 

 So the warm up is tiny little shoulder [00:16:00] circles. We're not here to dislocate or get aggressive for anything. A little neck circle. Again, nothing aggressive, but particularly if they're new, we'll go really slowly and start mind mapping on to what those muscles are, where they where they sit, how they're feeling. 

I'll have people give themselves a little neck massage. Again, something back there is bound to be tight, but if it isn't, we can take the moment to work on that mental map. A little jaw release as well, very standard, giving it a little squeeze, sometimes a shake if it needs that. , I'll often have people give the base of their tongue a little squish with their thumbs, which I think is a little bit unusual. 

 Base of the tongue is a real hot spot for tension for lots of people, but particularly for trans masc voice, because when you're used to singing with a higher voice, your sort of default larynx position is a little bit higher because that's where it was acoustically efficient when you were a soprano. 

Stephen: ,so as part of readjusting that, we really need the base of the tongue to chill [00:17:00] out and relax and let everything just sit down a little bit. , I'll often have people push a thumb up there and swallow. So they can feel that connection between the base of the tongue and the larynx. And then a little tongue stretch. 

I quite like having people stick it out. And then if that's comfy, keep it out and try to yawn. 

It's that really specific base of tongue bit that we, we in particular need to keep relaxed. , if you're a musical theater teacher, you might be used to having folks keep the back of their tongue high ish so you have a nice bright sound, but if someone is actively transitioning, it might be worth a slight detour into low back of tongue town, just until they get that space back. 

It doesn't mean it can never go up again,, but when we're thinking about the default state, sometimes it needs just to settle first. And then I'll have people do some big slidey cowardly lion yawns, kind of, Oh! Sneakily, you can kind of hear where someone's range [00:18:00] is at, where their blending is at. , and everything again, just stretches open. 

So before we've even really made much noise, everything is nice and relaxed. If I'm hearing tension or people are saying their voice is tired, I'll often then have them do some SOVT. I quite like, the bubbles. So we'll get a nice big cup of water and do some bubbles. We'll do slides and sometimes whole exercises into there and really think about what we feel, that feeling of pressure, of openness, anything else they notice. 

,and then just a nice slow ramp up of easy vocal exercises, like five note scales for longer than you'd think. And then moving to arpeggios and bigger, rangier things.  

Alexa: You mentioned before there that the, the lack of, or the, the missing part of the proprioception because you've spent a long time dissociating from your body. 

 I just wondered as the singing [00:19:00] teacher to help bring a bit more awareness and connection to the singer's body and the singer's awareness and how things are moving. How can we do that without directly addressing their body?  

Stephen: It really depends where someone is at in their transition. , so with new students, I'll usually kind of think about anatomy from the shoulders up until I get a vibe of how comfy they are. 

And then we'll start thinking more mechanically about things like breath,, and letting that sink down and,, resonance and such. , I feel like a lot of the time the easiest way in is to think a little bit about anatomy and function and have people start to, like, make a mental picture of this really cool, complicated machine that they're in charge of. 

 and I think sometimes having that map helps people check in a little bit more, if that makes sense.  

Alexa: Speaking of the breath, I remember when we had a consultation together, you were talking about [00:20:00] how airflow and pressure is a new experience when we transition into a more masculine voice because of the thickness of the vocal folds and what it requires. 

So could you just help us to understand that as the teacher, what we might be working with there for the airflow and pressure relationship? 

Stephen: Mostly it's experiential for the student. again, one of my favorite exercises is just really long crescendo de crescendos. I'll do them till the cows come home. 

Broadly speaking, if somebody, particularly if they had a high voice and or if they were classically trained, the, amount and pressure of air will feel quite different. Sometimes I, I will say it's like you used to play the trumpet and now it's a tuba. So, of course, you need to blow harder. 

Mechanically, the vocal folds are thicker, so they're heavier. They need more air pressure to get going. I think rather than get super technical about that, I will try to get people into a full supported sound and think a lot [00:21:00] about, Kind of hooking that sound into the sternum and having, , support all the way around for it. 

A lot of people are really surprised by the amount of noise that they could make, which is fun. 

Alexa: And, and when we were speaking about the chest binder earlier, you were talking about how we're not thinking necessarily about rib expansion .  

So in, in terms of that, how do you help guide singers to. What teachers might describe as a more efficient inhale, which is abdominal diaphragmatic or a 360 expansion and also engaging kind of those support muscles to get more sound going.  

Stephen: Depends on where they're at and what their vibe is. I quite like having people do a nice forward fold with their knees bent enough to get the ribcage onto the thighs. 

And then checking in first with the lower back, because I feel like we don't really consider our lower back very much, generally, or with breathing. And I don't know that it's the most efficient place to start musically. Almost [00:22:00] nobody has a weird gendered relationship with their lower back, so it's a nice place to start just grounding ourselves in. 

And I feel like that the pressure and weight of a forward fold, , because it's novel, it really helps our brain. Just notice there's a whole body down there. So that's my, that's my favorite place to start some deep breaths into the lower back, maybe making noise into it, maybe giving a little tap. 

So we physically feel that. I also quite like having people get a little bit of movement if they're comfortable with that. So I might have them pretend to be boxing. , cause it really, If you think about the cross body movement, all of that has to be involved. And because it's, it's a mechanical way of thinking of it, it again will help people get in without having to think too much about all the squishy bits. 

Alexa: Yeah, I get you. And that kind of forward fold. , I mean, I know I tend to use it with with helping air pressures, especially in that high, high range, because it, of, [00:23:00] of how it helps to the breath energy. And also it's a bit like the monkey bend, isn't it from Alexander technique where it can actually help with that lower expansion of the belly. 

Stephen: I think particularly for someone who's wearing a binder, that lower back connection can be really helpful because otherwise you get a really kind of mechanical, , just from the front of the tummy. And we can use our sides, but the ribs are not going to do that nice accordion thing if they're tied up, for better or worse. 

 Most folks will not oral binder indefinitely, they'll end up getting top surgery at some point, and then we get to relearn how our ribcage works. In the meantime, sink it down lower.  

Alexa: And I love the embodiment stuff. It's a bit like the effects of gesture. We spoke to Heather Baker recently about, how different gestures will, call upon the specific vocal quality that actually you're intending. 

 I think also Arthur Lessac came up with,, quite a few different embodiment sounds, I think called energies, NRGs, which I learned through Chris Johnson's Evolve course.  

Stephen: I think [00:24:00] particularly if someone has quite poor proprioception, doing a big sweeping arm movement here or a head bubble there,, can have a huge great outcome. 

 And as a fun bonus, people usually just think it's magic and I should be burnt as a witch because doing that helps their voice somehow, but it's a fun way to make that connection. 

Alexa: When it comes to registers, I mean, it's something that is probably a big part of a lot of singers training is looking at chest falsetto or head voice and the passaggio and, and all of that what encompasses it. For transmasculine singers, working head voice could be uncomfortable for for many reasons. So when is it the most ideal or more appropriate to work in a, in a head voice register for their training?  

Stephen: So some trans mask folk,, are really attached to their pre T high notes and will do any old [00:25:00] exercise you give them to try and keep those pre T notes as clear and clean as they possibly can. 

,for those of us who have a little more dysphoria around singing high and, or if you just had a big drop and things are unstable, I would settle in the chest range first. Just have a nice, warm, cozy moment with that octave, or maybe an octave and a half if you're lucky, of settled in chest voice notes. 

And I feel like the way that I will often reintroduce head voice is, to talk about how difficult and tight the top of your chest voice can feel if you don't have the muscle memory of where your head voice sits and you don't have the, the strength to bring it down and have that nice overlap. I feel like even if someone's in a belt,, I want them to have , the escape mechanism of I know how to also make this note in a very easy way, even if it's a little light and fluffy, you know? 

Alexa: So how would you help a singer [00:26:00] to reconnect with their, with their upper notes? What's an exercise that you like to apply?  

Stephen: Well, my favorite one is to just have people go, Woo! Like they're at a gig,, and just see where it naturally lies. You'll often get a big break in there if people's voices aren't fully settled, but c'est la vie. That's an interesting data point. , If people's chest voice hasn't settled, sometimes we have the problem of like, not being able to get our vocal folds truly thick and relaxed, which means that sort of I don't know if it's the best sound, but that very affirming kind of thick vocal folds, falsettoy woo! can be hard to access because people try to bring the weight of their chest voice up with them. So, the other thing I love to do is just have people grumble and drone roughly at the bottom of their range, relax everything, and then see if they can, like, almost overblow up to a high note with as little [00:27:00] movement as possible. That's often a really good one for people who like cannot find for the life of them where their head notes have gone.  

Alexa: So would that be a case of finding a low note and kind of almost picking that up that same shape and moving it to an octave higher or just a higher range?  

Stephen: Yeah, maybe an octave or two octaves or one and a half depending on where people's ranges are sitting. Sometimes people who were fantastic singers before T, if they're one of the folks who has the really big old drop and everything goes wonky, they'll often kind of be stuck in the muscle memory of where those notes used to be. So they'll put everything where they think it needs to go for that note, and they'll blow and nothing will come out. 

So for that, I love to just have someone sit in the bottom and then see if they can. just fluff out an airy falsetto just so we can find where it exists.  

Alexa: And when it comes to resonance and kind of shaping, vocal tract [00:28:00] shaping, finding space, you've mentioned before about , the Chihuahua and, the Big St. 

Bernard. , are there any other tactics that you like when it comes to the resonance strategy or maintaining that space when you're singing?  

Stephen: I feel like I talk a lot about the soft palate. But I'm sure everyone does. And I feel like specifically the relationship between the soft palate and the back of the tongue, how they love to move in opposition when you open up, like for a yawn 

sometimes that's the feeling that I'll have people move towards. Um,, I'll often have people change the shape of their vowels a little bit to be a little bit darker. , and sometimes a little bit of thyroid tilt will do wonders depending on where their defaults are, just to have that. open feeling. . 

Alexa: .Something that I've quite liked applying, , is a kind of dopey, fed up, blah, blah, blah. So you kind of have that lower larynx position, you're being driven by [00:29:00] actually the emotional cue or the gesture cue of whatever they, are deeming to be annoying that day. Sometimes it's what they're doing at work or the alarm goes off in the morning and you're kind of channeling that as the way in. 

Then moving across their chest voice range, Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I found that to be quite good. It's also, seemingly making some independence between articulation and the larynx as well. So I found that to be quite useful.  

Stephen: Oh, I like that. And I think also just finding examples of different voices, to have us copy is also really helpful. 

My favorite example that I always make,, my trans masc tenors sing is Hozier. Who, he is a pop singer, but he's fantastic. And what I love is, it's a really open, dark, full tone. Which I think to an untrained ear, a lot of people assume he's got a really low voice. But he doesn't, it's just really dark. 

 I think [00:30:00] particularly for trans masc people, the realization that they can sing lower than him, that the resonance that he's using works beautifully. are both really, really helpful. And, like, if we're struggling to get a nice, sort of, belty G4, like in Take Me to Church, it's weirdly dysphoria easing to hear a cis man doing it with a big dark tone. 

 It shouldn't be. I'm going to go ahead and say that just like in terms of, the complexity of the trans identity. It shouldn't help to map onto a cis person and go, oh, he's higher than me, but it just does sometimes. And I think that's fine to acknowledge.  

Alexa: Yeah. And I think also maybe Because Hosier does some lovely yodel flips. Yeah. Yeah, I think that can be quite nice to introduce the head voice back in to, an [00:31:00] option for the singer to be like, it's being used. And the same within the musical theater world with people like Orpheus in Hadestown, with that falsetto work, it might just allow that to feel maybe a little more accessible, or at least safe 

Stephen: Absolutely. Flipping up to a couple of head voice notes and getting that confidence is very much a stage that we need to sit in for a good long while before blending becomes a thing. The lower your voice is, the, the harder that passaggio is to blend through anyhow. I think the added difficulties of the instability of having a voice change later in life and having to relearn all of that means sometimes that moment takes a little while for us and that's fine. 

Alexa: You mentioned earlier about the tongue and how in the beginning it might actually be helpful to have something that's less high, something that might actually be a little bit further down. 

[00:32:00] So how would you help a singer to discover that, but in a way that doesn't then back up the tongue into like retraction and, become less helpful? 

Stephen: It sort of depends on what the student's style and,, vocal goals are. Sometimes I'll take a full on tangent over into classical technique, and we'll do that for a little while before we come on back to something else. 

I'm actually fine with people embracing their inner, like, kermit the frog and letting it go straight on back, just so they can feel that as one end of a spectrum. And then maybe we actually want them here. But when you're kind of new to voice training and new to thinking about where your tongue is in the first place, sometimes that really helps. 

Impressions, silly voices. Warm ups on big open warm vowels for just quite a long time. 

Alexa: And I guess that's kind of what we do in negative practice anyway, isn't it? It's kind of going to those extremes to [00:33:00] find a position on that spectrum, if you like, as to where you want to sit for a while. And also using the more classically leaning approach, um for trans masculine singers who are entering, maybe the musical theatre world, legit would be, maybe quite a, a nice thing for them to explore on that part. 

Stephen: Absolutely. ,have a semester of, Gilbert and Sullivan and just have a nice silly time of it.  

Alexa: You've mentioned Hosier and we've, we've talked about legit. And you also said at the beginning how it's not really too dissimilar from working with a cis male singer who is. 

moving through an adolescent puberty. So are we going to be making the same considerations with repertoire, like key changing and maybe using some of that same material we would use with a, a cisgendered. pubertal teenager as we would with a transmasculine singer?  

Stephen: Yeah, absolutely. for some people they'll go through a short while where their range is really limited before it opens back up. 

And for a [00:34:00] lot of folks where the top and bottom of their ranges will kind of shift week on week for the first year. So I think having a few things in your pocket that have a slightly narrower range,, but still have musically interesting things. To work on is a really nice one. , My favorite thing that I have newer students work on is Summertime by George Gershwin. 

It's a really nice, simple melody. Most people already know it, but it's a range of exactly an octave and it's got really nice, long held notes on both the top and the bottom note. So for thinking about stability and control and maybe getting some dynamics in, it's just a nice, easy. Vehicle to practice that in a song that's pretty and really easy to transpose. 

 Some people keep a really smooth, and full range the whole time. It really depends on. how they used their voice before, how flexible it was, how low the men's voices in their family are, there's a lot of factors. 

Alexa: Just to follow up on the topic of repertoire, [00:35:00] Stephen gave us some guidance on vocal ranges, particularly for that top end of chest voice. 

Again, voices are individual, but he advises that typically, a recently changed tenor voice is probably going to start feeling it at around D4, E4. A recently changed baritone around A3, B3, where things become a little unstable. And if someone's voice has dropped to a bass, around F3. Thanks for that, Stephen. 

 Considering technical challenges or how the singer used their voice pre T, how do they show up in the changed voice or the changing voice? 

Stephen: Changed and changing voices need really precise technique. We need good habits around stuff like tongue and jaw tension, around doing a full warmup, around not trying to take too much weight or pressure up with us, managing vocal fold weight. And if, [00:36:00] if those are lacking, often, a talented person will be able to get away with it with a higher voice and then it'll change and they will not be able to get away with that anymore. 

So we'll often just have to take some of the technique back to a slightly rudimentary level just to really check in with everything. I feel like also just being flexible broadly and comfortable in thick folds. specifically pre t. goes a long way. So if someone's like a classically trained coloratura soprano, they may or may not ever sit at the bottom of their range and do a really like thick, boring drone. but those are the muscles that will help them post change, even if they still want to keep doing classical repertoire and still want to keep a lighter and thinner, sound. 

Alexa: So for teachers who are finding that more and more transmasculine singers are entering their studios, what would be your biggest bit of advice to teachers on how to help those [00:37:00] singers progress and develop? 

Stephen: Check in a lot and start to work the self reflection muscle for that singer. I will stop all the time and ask someone how something's feeling, how they feel, how it sounded, just to try and get those loops going. 

And I think even if the first handful of times, Someone's answer is, I don't know, I will keep asking, just because I want them to keep thinking about it. Which I suppose you do with any singer, but. Do it twice as much with us. 

Alexa: Your book, Transmasculine Voice, A Guide to Vocal Euphoria, is going to be available very, very soon. But what other resources would you suggest that voice teachers like me and our listeners and trans singers check out in the meantime? 

Stephen: So there's a really great book called One Weird Trick, A User's Guide to Transgender Voice by Liz Jackson Hearns. It's written really accessibly, which I love. She's also got a great one about, trans singing voices. Although in the [00:38:00] UK, I think currently it goes for like £250. I know it's good because you can read it at the British Library for free. 

There's also Queering Vocal Pedagogy, , by William, I want to say, Sauerland, it's a really nice one. And there's also, an anthology of,, repertoire for trans voices out there that has, like, thematically appropriate songs, but also you can transpose them into any key, which is real helpful. 

Alexa: You mentioned there, thematically. Appropriate songs and that's one thing that maybe we should mention the repertoire section is it's not necessarily just about the vocal range, but it are there particular topics that could be triggering for trans masculine singers, potentially,  

Stephen: it's really individual. I feel like sometimes transmasc people with higher voices will. end up getting cast as children a lot, which is fun and cute for the first couple of years but you might have to lay off at a certain point [00:39:00] once somebody's 30 and just grumpy that they're short and have a high voice and they're tired of that part. 

I hear that a lot. But I think it's not as long as it's not like, I enjoy being a girl or anything like that. You're probably fine.  

Alexa: You're the conductor of London Trans Choir. So can you tell us a bit about that and, and the community that you've built? 

Stephen: Yeah, it's been really nice. We've been going since 2017, I believe with a break for COVID for obvious reasons, and it's grown from a handful of people to, I think there's 60 something in our WhatsApp, but maybe 20 or 30 come to any given rehearsal. But we, we've got people of. all vocal levels, some of them will just happily pick up a weird harmony part and sight sing it. 

Some people need the whole term just to learn the melody and everyone's welcome. It all comes together in the end. And then most rehearsals will hang out after for a coffee and socialize. It's just a really nice space where people can try [00:40:00] a part in a different octave, try a different part than they might be assigned in a different choir, just to see what it feels like, try a new thing with their voice safely, and just meet other folks in the community in a fun atmosphere. 

I feel like a lot of trans groups are like support groups where you sit around and cry, and I'm, they're great, but what if we just had a nice time, you know?  

Alexa: Well, Stephen Davidson, this has been really insightful and thank you so much for your company today. Where can listeners find out more about you and London Trans Choir and get in touch? 

Stephen: I'm transvoice on Insta, and also TikTok, although I go on there less because I'm very middle aged. And it's also londontranschoir. com.  

Alexa: Great. And I'm totally with you with TikTok. I am not dancing for shit.  

Stephen: No, I just watch cat videos.  

Alexa: Love it. Stephen, thank you so much.  

Stephen: Thank you..