Vocal update 2: No not like that

I've been feeling physically and mentally awful since Friday, most likely sick with something. But from Monday to Thursday, I continued studying and practicing.

For reference, this is the playlist I've been working with. As someone who has studied so little about the human voice, it shocks me just how many factors are at play shaping what it sounds like.

I've gained a steady control of my pitch, resonance and weight individually, but combining them sounds... how to put it. It doesn't sound awful exactly, but it definitely sounds like I'm doing a voice, if that makes any sense. I can produce it without any strain, but it doesn't sound "correct" coming from me.

The good news is, I know what I want to sound like — I even had a friend listen to my goal and they instantly agreed that it would fit me perfectly — but I don't know how to get there from here.

I've reached the end of the playlist, too. So the best I can do now is just experiment and explore. That may be the hardest part for me. I'm too self-conscious to try it where I can be heard. Heck, I literally got in my car and did all of my exercises so far in a parking lot! 😅 And I don't know how to get any device to effectively play my voice back to me with a several-second delay. So I'm... not really sure where to go.

And there were aspects of voice the playlist decidedly did not cover. But they did say that it would come up later. Now here I am at later, and I can't find that info.

I had two one-on-one sessions with one of the coaches from that channel many months ago, when I was far more clueless. I'm going to go back through the recordings of those sessions next and see if I missed anything.

I know part of my problem is inflection. Your speech patterns are taught as pervasively as any other social aspect of gender, except they're oh so much more subtle and complex. Even a single-syllable word can sound different in like four ways when you pay close attention. So I need to find a decent voice reference and study the hell out of it.

Sigh. There's so much road left to walk, but at least I'm moving.