How do I raise the pitch of my voice? I tried just raising my voice to a higher pitch, but it just ends up cracking eventually. Any fellow MtF's have advice? Where do I talk from? I'm so used to talking from the chest.
It's a muscle and it takes time. What's been working for me is just breathing in and out while squeezing my voice box. You squeeze it when you hum making an "ng" sound, if that makes sense at all. When you breath like that your breath should sound lighter and more feminine. That and I sing a lot. Don't strain yourself! If your throat starts to feel dry or it starts getting hard to hold a pitch, I drink some generic throat coat tea.
There are plenty of dvd's and the like you can get to help instruct you, I got one called "Finding your female voice" it ran for like $12 on amazon, and has been working wonders. But like Cassie said, it is a muscle. It's harder for MTF since testosterone thickens this muscle, It will take alot of practice to wrest conscious control of a subconscious muscle, however singing does help, like being in a choir and stuff. As men generally talk an Octave lower then women, there is a cross area where some men and women speak in the same "Key". Bu Practice is the key here, finding the right area on the spectrum your voicebox can go, if you speak nasally trying to sound like a woman, you've gone too high =)
I know it's a bit different because I'm not trans*, but I tried awhile back to make my voice higher because my voice is naturally a little deeper and I hated it. I looked up a lot of stuff and from what I understand, men talk from their chest whereas women talk more from the throat area. Like someone said, the area you use the make the "ng" sound. If you try to talk from your throat it sounds a lot more feminine and I was able to change my voice that way. Warning: you can feel a lot of strain from it at first and it kinda sucks, so be careful.
