For quick small-talk occasions, yes, I think I can pull off a feminine voice. If I were engaged in a longer conversation, I think it would be more difficult.
The three things I do are as follows. I listen to my natural voice, and call that “do.” I then raise my voice “do-re-mi-fa-sol” and talk there. The pitch is not too high that it sounds falsetto, and I still have the ability to modulate my voice at this pitch. This alone doesn’t feminize my voice, I’m just talking at a pitch half an octave higher.
The second thing is to open my throat and talk from the chest, like they tell you to do when singing. This doesn’t exactly feminize my voice either, but it de-masculinizes it by eliminating the buzz from my throat. The slightly higher pitch you are talking at makes this easier.
The third thing is to make my voice smaller. A few people mention they talk in more of a whisper. The problem with this is that you can’t get volume when you need it. If you are talking and someone can’t hear you, if you remove the whisper and talk louder then your masculine voice will return.
The trick (and I learned this from a speech specialist who has been a guest at meetings on a few occasions) is to push some air into your nasal cavities. The nasal cavities are a smaller space than your oral cavity, and the resonance in the nasal cavity will therefore be smaller, and your voice will sound smaller. You can still push out a large volume of air to sound loud while maintaining a feminine voice.
You don’t want to push all the air into your nasal cavity, because you will then sound extremely nasal, like Fran Drescher or Barbara Streisand. You have to experiment with how much air you push up. I find about half to two-thirds works well for me.
These work well enough for the “Hi, how are you” or other very short conversations. If you want to work on longer conversations, you need to learn other techniques, such as using your hands when you talk, modulating the voice (but not overmodulating it), and talking in a legato form (elongate vowels and make smooth transition between words) rather than the masculine staccato (crisp words, sharp breaks between words). Word choice is another thing that can be worked on.
I’ve attended many parties or support group meetings with others, and I’m always surprised how few people even attempt a feminine voice, even if out in public such as at a restaurant. I can’t say that I’m always consistent at these longer events. But when I see people in the street or in a store, I do make the effort to use my feminine voice.
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