An in-depth course about teaching trans voices, whether you’re providing gender-affirming care, singing lessons, acting lessons, or medical care. This course is suitable for trans community practitioners, voice coaches, and SLP/SLT/ENT practitioners alike; we’ll all learn together. We’ll cover the how and the why, with voice techniques, teaching techniques, community knowledge, lesson observations, and practical exercises with feedback throughout.
Lessons will be on zoom, with recordings of main classes, notes, and further reading available to all participants. There will be further small group practice sessions at various times, to allow participants from different time zones. Upon successful completion certificates of achievement will be awarded.
Bursary spots are available for trans POC, to address their historical lack of representation in both voice teaching and queer spaces. Email londontranschoir@gmail.com
Main class outline:
Week 1: Introductions, basics, why?
- Who is in the room? Getting to know each other and setting expectations
- Why this course? Why today? Setting intentions for the course
- Side quests, practice groups, and other practicalities
- Vocal anatomy and function basics, so that we’re all starting on the same page
Week 2: What is a masculine/feminine voice anyway?
- Group warmup, with a chat about the how and why
- Breaking down resonance, pitch, vocal fold weight, inflection
- Listening to different voices and analysing what we hear
- Understanding bright/dark resonance, with exercises
Week 3: Vocal fold weight
- Group warmup, with a chat about the how and why
- Understanding vocal fold weight, with exercises
- Experimenting with different combinations of bright/dark and heavy/light
Week 4: Pitch please
- Group warmup
- How important is pitch in the perception of vocal gender?
- Practical exercises for raising or lowering
- Experimenting with different combinations of pitch/resonance/weight
- Pitch measuring apps, tone deafness, and how to talk about self monitoring
Week 5: How did we get here?
- Group warmup
- What T does and doesn’t do to voices in puberty and as adults
- Nature v nurture; what reads as masculine/feminine in different accents and languages
- Understanding inflection/prosody in context
- Experimenting with layering different qualities, analysing more diverse voices
Week 6: Who are we teaching?
- General awareness about the trans community, trans joy, boundaries for cis practitioners
- Celebrating trans icons
- Co-occurring conditions, and how they’re woven into our community practice
Week 7: How are we teaching?
- Co-occurring conditions, and how they affect learning
- Technical precision v abstract images; are we all saying the same thing?
- Managing cognitive load
Week 8: Trauma informed practice, with Tanaka Mhishi
- How does trauma present itself, and what can we do to help regulate
- How can we protect ourselves from harm when we empathise deeply
- Where does our duty of care start, and where does it end
Week 9: Singing voices on T
- How to sing through a voice change without harm
- Setting expectations for voice changes
- Practical exercises for every step
Week 10: Upper register singing
- Can lower voices learn to sing high safely?
- Where is the overlap between speaking and singing voice?
- Practical exercises
Week 11: Side quests
- Presentation of individual assignments and discussion
Week 12: Wrapping up
- A short written test to evaluate how well we have explained things
- Space for final questions
- Reflection and further goals - what do we still need to learn?
Practical groups:
An extra hour of small group instruction each week where participants will demonstrate exercises learned, practise modifying for different circumstances, and ask for help/feedback as needed
Side Quests:
A 5-10 minute presentation on a related subject of your choice, either chosen from a list provided or independently (please check with an instructor that your choice is appropriate)
Learning material:
Written supplements will be given or recommended for each topic taught, and participants will have an opportunity to watch recordings of 1:1 lessons to see practical outcomes