Finding my feminine voice
Posted: Sat Jun 09, 2012 4:46 pm
This thread in some ways was generated by my reactions to Anita’s previous thread so I just wanted to acknowledge that up front.
Today I bought a copy of “finding your feminine voice” – a voice training programme. Shortly afterwards, I read Anita’s post and it triggered a whole host of thoughts that seem to have been sitting around waiting for a title! Therefore, here is how I found my feminine voice!
I have written elsewhere about how Cross-dressing became an issue for me and so I won’t repeat too much of that, save to say that the issue was around for me very early! I have an older Sister (8 years older) that moved away with her boyfriend when I was about 10. We had always been close and so she sent me tapes each week that she had made up for me. I had been into music from the word go and so by the age of 10 this was a natural thing to do. At the time, a neighbour was abusing me and so music gave me another world to go to.
I was already in a choir and my voice was high (treble)! I really loved singing in a choir – that sense of being in a family. The little noises we made as individuals adding together and coming out as something that could fill a Cathedral (literally on occasions)! Did we just make that sound!??
Obviously, I would sing along with the songs on the tapes that my sister would send me. At this young age I was into Music that none of my peers had even heard of – Jefferson Airplane, Janis Joplin, Joni Mitchell, the velvet underground, Bob Dylan, to name a few. I can remember singing along to “Summertime” – the Janis Joplin version and being completely blown away by it! Or Joan Armatrading’s “Love and Affection”. Wow – I could really come up with a girly track list at this point!
Anyway – it was a secret language. None of my friends knew about it and I found that I could relate to the sentiment. It tended to be “feeling” songs that got me pumped up; plus – I could really hit the notes! At 11 I could sing Summertime so you wouldn’t know the difference! Or “Old Cape Cod” or ... That’s even allowing for poor Janice working back a bottle of whiskey a day! Bless her!
Anita’s post got me thinking about this and I am realising that this was equivalent to trying on bra’s. Ok I was doing a bit of that as well – but actually, this really was about me stepping into a female psychology! My reading also took this pattern! I can quote Jane Austen ‘til I’m sick - and that includes her letters!
Once puberty hit – I could no longer sing in that way! It felt like a real loss! I worked hard at retaining as much as I could and today I can still do reasonable renditions – but not like I was able to do back then!
I had always played instruments as well. After several years on the clarinet and the recorder, I started playing the guitar and then got drawn off in the direction of guitar playing bands (which had a different language). “Girl – you really got me going! You got me so I can’t sleep at night!” Hell yeah!
By the time I was 18 I was really in demand by the guys because I knew so much about music / was going to gigs / could sing /smoked like a trooper / was completely off my face most of the time. I was also in demand from the girls who basically wanted me to translate for them! That I was different was patently obvious to them even though I wasn't camp or any of that. Long hair, black leather jacket, Motorbikes!
Then Kate Bush’s career took off and I really understood the language, the imagery and the references she used! I can remember her being received by the males around me like marmite – you loved her or you hated her. I loved her – and thought that she was a genius! Strangely – women tended to not be so smitten as men! I think they found that version of femininity to be a bit too much of a caricature.
I continue to connect to this language to this day. The thing that makes me buy dresses, is the same thing that leaves a lump in my throat when I hear Kate Bush, is the same thing that connects me to feminine literature, is the same thing that makes me roar with laughter and delight when watching “Kissing Jessica Stein” or “New Girl”. I can still sing “Summertime” and enjoy it – but when I was a kid, boy could I sing like Janis Joplin!
Sorry for going on...
Incidentally – I’m still in a choir!
Hugs Ginny x
Today I bought a copy of “finding your feminine voice” – a voice training programme. Shortly afterwards, I read Anita’s post and it triggered a whole host of thoughts that seem to have been sitting around waiting for a title! Therefore, here is how I found my feminine voice!
I have written elsewhere about how Cross-dressing became an issue for me and so I won’t repeat too much of that, save to say that the issue was around for me very early! I have an older Sister (8 years older) that moved away with her boyfriend when I was about 10. We had always been close and so she sent me tapes each week that she had made up for me. I had been into music from the word go and so by the age of 10 this was a natural thing to do. At the time, a neighbour was abusing me and so music gave me another world to go to.
I was already in a choir and my voice was high (treble)! I really loved singing in a choir – that sense of being in a family. The little noises we made as individuals adding together and coming out as something that could fill a Cathedral (literally on occasions)! Did we just make that sound!??
Obviously, I would sing along with the songs on the tapes that my sister would send me. At this young age I was into Music that none of my peers had even heard of – Jefferson Airplane, Janis Joplin, Joni Mitchell, the velvet underground, Bob Dylan, to name a few. I can remember singing along to “Summertime” – the Janis Joplin version and being completely blown away by it! Or Joan Armatrading’s “Love and Affection”. Wow – I could really come up with a girly track list at this point!
Anyway – it was a secret language. None of my friends knew about it and I found that I could relate to the sentiment. It tended to be “feeling” songs that got me pumped up; plus – I could really hit the notes! At 11 I could sing Summertime so you wouldn’t know the difference! Or “Old Cape Cod” or ... That’s even allowing for poor Janice working back a bottle of whiskey a day! Bless her!
Anita’s post got me thinking about this and I am realising that this was equivalent to trying on bra’s. Ok I was doing a bit of that as well – but actually, this really was about me stepping into a female psychology! My reading also took this pattern! I can quote Jane Austen ‘til I’m sick - and that includes her letters!
Once puberty hit – I could no longer sing in that way! It felt like a real loss! I worked hard at retaining as much as I could and today I can still do reasonable renditions – but not like I was able to do back then!
I had always played instruments as well. After several years on the clarinet and the recorder, I started playing the guitar and then got drawn off in the direction of guitar playing bands (which had a different language). “Girl – you really got me going! You got me so I can’t sleep at night!” Hell yeah!
By the time I was 18 I was really in demand by the guys because I knew so much about music / was going to gigs / could sing /smoked like a trooper / was completely off my face most of the time. I was also in demand from the girls who basically wanted me to translate for them! That I was different was patently obvious to them even though I wasn't camp or any of that. Long hair, black leather jacket, Motorbikes!
Then Kate Bush’s career took off and I really understood the language, the imagery and the references she used! I can remember her being received by the males around me like marmite – you loved her or you hated her. I loved her – and thought that she was a genius! Strangely – women tended to not be so smitten as men! I think they found that version of femininity to be a bit too much of a caricature.
I continue to connect to this language to this day. The thing that makes me buy dresses, is the same thing that leaves a lump in my throat when I hear Kate Bush, is the same thing that connects me to feminine literature, is the same thing that makes me roar with laughter and delight when watching “Kissing Jessica Stein” or “New Girl”. I can still sing “Summertime” and enjoy it – but when I was a kid, boy could I sing like Janis Joplin!
Sorry for going on...
Incidentally – I’m still in a choir!
Hugs Ginny x