#choirlife

Zarzuela in progress 🔥

Achieved these days!

bunch of school stuff (not gonna get into it all

had the first choir camp of the year, which basically involves 14 hours of singing in two days (ouch)

had my second rehearsal of oklahoma! I got the blocking for my first scene, and then ran lines with some of the other leads

prepared for the tramp i’m going on tomorrow for 4 days!!

found out my country is back in level 2 (or 3 if you are in auckland lmaoooo)

One of my biggest fears of starting testosterone was about losing control over my voice when singing. I’ve been in school choir for 5 years, 4 of them I spent singing in an all mens choir as a Tenor I. Even as the highest voice part available in the group I failed to sing many of the notes without vocal fry or even struggled to produce sound at all. The last year I spent singing as an Alto II in the school’s honors choir.

I am now a few days over 10 weeks into my treatment. My OBGyn says that I have been decently ahead of the average timeline for vocal changes, body and facial hair, bottom growth, etc. Tonight I was able to access my falsetto for the first time. It was a euphoric feeling as I had triumphed over a great struggle. I have been practicing vocal warmups and songs across all ranges I could muster for about an hour a day since I began HRT.

The first month seemed hopeless. I had uncontrollable shaking and cracking in my former range and new notes had not developed. Once they did I was able to stabilize my chest voice and regain control over my vibrato. I would say this happened around 6 weeks. Then I began attempting to broaden the range of my new head voice at 8. Both parts of my voice are now very strong and I have good control over them with far less cracking and only occasional shakiness.

Tonight I attempted transitioning from the furthest extent of my head voice to countertenor notes in a falsetto, which I had previously not been able to. The most I could achieve was an uncontrollable squeak if any sound managed to happen at all.

The placement these notes came from a place that I had never even fathomed with my former muscle memory and yet they sounded like what I had achieved in my chest voice before HRT.

OA: *Bleats*

A: You sounded like a goat