Hi Allissande-

Alexandra's advice is very good and her point about there being only a half octave difference between men and women's voice is correct. One additional thing is that women tend to use more of their voice range while speaking. Listen to almost any g-girl and her pitch will rise and fall as she speaks. In other words, women's voices are more melodic, whereas men tend to talk in a monotone. Many women, Bea Arthur springs to mind as does Cher have husky voices. Don't know if I'd particularly want to emulate Bea Arthur in all regards but Cher's sense of style, while a bit outrageous for going out for a drink or two, is certainly worth imitating and to me she has a sexy voice.

There are several resources on the internet that help with voice training, you might check a Yahoo group called "voicets". I'm back, had to go look it up, here's the addy: <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/voicets/>. They have some resources on their site. I'm also planning to buy a cd by a t-girl named Andrea James through Deep Stealth Productions. Here's their url: <http://www.deepstealth.com/store/index.htm>. There are voice samples you can listen to on the site. When I finally do get it, I'll post a review. BTW, if anyone else has tried it out, how did you like it? Did it help?

To me changing my voice is one of the hardest things there is. Sadly, I haven't found any magic trick, "Oh, it's easy, you just cross your eyes for a second and pull gently on your left earlobe and there you go!" And even worse is it's something that takes time and practice, just like training your voice for singing, which I don't do well either.

Anyway, as usual Joni has just rambled on. No matter what, have fun and don't worry about it too much, just enjoy yourself. And gosh darn it, take some pictures. We love piccies.

Hugs, Joni from Oregon