If you missed last week's Instagram live Teaching Trans Voice Q&A session - never fear! You can watch it right here on this page, read the transcript below, or click here to watch it on Instagram. 

This live was so special because I had FOUR previous course participants join me to talk about their experience in the course; Camille Rogers, Edith Boucher-Hazelton, Kassy Coleman, and Ty Duong.

With these trans voice teachers, I talked about their experience with online learning, taking a live e-course, and keeping up with homework. We discussed working in a mixed group of both trans and cis folks and what that dynamic was like. We also talked about what our hopes are for the future of trans voice education and how we can make voice education more generally a safer place for all trans people.

It was a really beautiful and lively discussion and I hope you take a little time to listen to the replay! (Hot tip: you can always play the video at 2x playback speed in case you're short on time).

Registration for the next cohort of my teacher training course, Learn to Teach Trans Voice Alteration in 5 Weeks, is open now but the doors close this Thursday, February 10th! Space is limited and the course is filling up quickly!

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Transcript

- Hey Camille. Hi everyone. Thanks for coming. Yay. Hi, everybody. Welcome to the teaching trans voice Q and A. We're going to start with a little guest. So I'm gonna bring in one of my former students, from the last teacher training cohort. Here we go. Let's see if that will work. Hi.

- Hello.

- How you doing Camille?

- I'm doing pretty good. I'm in Alberta currently. It's a chilly chilly day here, but that's okay.

- Very cool. It's nice to see you again. We don't have a ton of people here, so we'll maybe, I don't know. I don't have like a big plan or anything, but I thought we could just like talk a little bit about the course and teaching trans voice in general. Maybe we could start by you just telling the people who are here, who you are and what you do.

- Sure. Hi everyone. I'm Camille Rogers. I use the them pronouns. I'm normally based in Toronto. I go to UT for a doctorate in voice right now, but right now I am just hanging out with my family in Alberta, as things in Toronto are, you know, pretty intense with COVID right now. So that's why I'm here. Other things about me, I'm trained as an opera singer, but I'm also huge, huge musical theater nerd. I've been teaching voice since I was in my undergrad, which is like eight years ago now or something like that. Yeah. And I just recently took Renée's, the very first cohort of the teaching trans or.

- It's a long name, "Learn to teach trans voice alteration. in five weeks", yeah.

- Yeah, because it's like, I'm learning to teach the teaching. Yeah. So I took that in last year and it was just super wonderful.

- Oh, thanks. Yeah. I've had a couple people like ask questions about what it's like to get into this work. And I know you hadn't done any teaching, like of trans voice alteration before. Had you done some of that work before you came in?.

- No, certainly not professionally. I've like read about it and like had taken some, it had been sort of touched upon in voice pedagogy courses, but like nothing that in depth. And I do have experience teaching, like singing, but not anything like speech focused. Yeah.

- And since the course, have you looked into doing that more or has your practice changed at all? I'm curious to see how things have changed since the course ended.

- Yeah. I mean, I'm definitely, everything is in like the planning stage right now. I definitely like want to start incorporating that into my life. I mean, right now I'm a student, so that's sort of my like biggest focus, but in a year or two, I'm hoping to transition more into teaching, having more students.

- You're getting your music doctorates, right?

- Yeah.

- Woof. Big, big study.

- Big, big, big.

- Yeah. I just wanted to tell the people who are here. If you have questions for either me or for Camille, you're welcome to drop them in the chat. I'm gonna like wave the people. Yeah. I didn't know what to expect. I haven't done a lot of like Instagram live events. I just found that like, there were more teachers who follow me here than on any other platform. There seems to be like quite a few teachers here. I don't know. Have you had a chance to connect with any of the other people in the class, since it ended?

- A little bit, just like sort of over social media, like following each other. Yeah. I definitely have been like going over my notes, digesting things.

- Yeah. Maybe you could tell me, like I'm curious, like what your experience was as a student, 'cause now I've taught this material so many times that I know it all sort of like in my body. And so it's, I wonder what it's like to be getting it for the first time. Like what was the experience like of attending all the classes and getting all that information.

- For me, like super great, super fascinating. It was like a lot of information at once. So I think that's why I've still been like soaking in, in a little bit. I do feel like for me right now, I've actually been like, I've been like trying to work some of the exercises into my daily practice routine, 'cause I think, before I start to teach these techniques, I wanna be like really solid that I can not only like demonstrate them, but just like I know exactly how it feels at least in my body so that I can just have the, just have that experience. So I've been yeah, playing around with my own voice. Yeah.

- Oh, we've got Edith here. Edith, if you wanted to jump in later after Camille and you know, talk about your experience in the class, you'd be welcome to. Edith is another student from the last cohort and I see who else is here, Nicole, Alice Ross, hello. Hello. So that just for those joining, Camille took my course, learned to teach trans voice alteration in five weeks, in the last cohort and the doors are open now for the registration for the next cohort, which is starting on February 17. And it will go until March 17th. I decided to put it on Thursday in the middle of the day. And I'm not sure if that was like the best idea, but I really just wanted to have a weekend, like weekends for the month of February and March, 'cause we had our cohort on a Sunday and I didn't, I mean, I didn't mind that like it was pretty fun to spend my day with the cohort, but I thought, what would you like to have a normal work life and take weekends for myself? But that being said, there were some people who took the course asynchronously so that they didn't attend the live classes. Camille, did you use the recordings of the classes ever like in your study during the course or did you go back and look at the recorded material?

- I did occasionally. I didn't, I don't think I, I didn't go back and like watch all the way through, but there were certain points where I was like, oh, I'd really love to hear that again. So I definitely re-watched a couple of things. Yeah.

- Yeah. So for those who don't know, all the classes are recorded and then they're uploaded into a member's only section where you can re-watch stuff that was confusing or like just to refresh yourself and it stays up for a long time. So you can always go back and check that out. Yes. I'm trying to think of another question for you specifically, like from your background, 'cause you came in as like somebody who is so much study. Do you think that some of the material of this course is going to like come into your practice as an opera singer?

- I think definitely. I mean, at this point I sort of only loosely self-identify as an opera singer in the sense that...

- Okay, sorry, I shouldn't have assumed. I just know that you recently did a production, right?

- Yeah, no, I still do opera, but I think I am like, I wanna to find what that means for..

- I love that.

- Thank you. So yeah. I'm yeah, I'm super interested to a, experiment with some of these techniques myself. Oh, that's that's really fun. And then I also it's really, it's all very interesting for me because actually my like academic research and study, it's all about gender as well and gender...

- Amazing.

- And so it all really, mine is more like historical. I'm like working on the 17th century, but it all connects.

- I mean, history, you know it all. Yeah. Can you tell us a bit more about what you're studying?

- Sure. So I'm studying basically how people thought about gender in late 17th century Europe, and how that kind of showed up in operas of that time. France specifically. And I have found this amazing singer who lived at that time name's Judy , who was gender nonconforming? We don't know exactly how, you know, how she would've identified today, but she just had a wildlife. She was always like getting into sword fights and like, yeah. So yeah, I'm sort of collecting information about her life and the music she sang, the roles she created. It's really interesting because it's very difficult to tell what like what's true about her and what isn't.

- Okay. Because of course there's so much that is like, this is probably a legend, but it's also just like so fun that I want it to be real.

- Cool. That's amazing. So for people who are in the chat right now, you're welcome to ask a question about teaching trans voice, either to me as a teacher, with the experience in the field or to Camille, as someone who recently took the course, like I was saying, registration's open now for the second cohort and I probably won't do another cohort until the fall. I don't plan on having one in the summer. Although if there was like a lot of demand, I could consider that. But if there's any questions about the course, about the experience of taking an online course, had you ever done an online course before, Camille?

- I mean, I've done. I like all of my like university courses have been online for a while.

- Okay. Yeah. I mean like outside of the pandemic thing, like there's eCourses, which were sort of popular before online learning was big.

- Yeah. I don't think I'd ever done an online course, like pre pandemic, but I've taken like even outside of university, I've taken a couple now, I think yours was sort of like the longest or like most, yeah, the, with multiple sessions, but I found it like really, I think what made it really nice, at least for me, like, I understand why some people might wanna do it asynchronously for whatever reason, but I think one of the most, one of the things that kept kept me like got me up on the Sunday morning was just like the group of people and having like a group to chat with and ask questions and it was just such a lovely cohort.

- Yeah. We had a big, lovely, loving group of people.

- Yeah. So nice.

- Yeah. I had thought like not a lot of people have done eCourses, I know that like now that online learning is big, people are starting to sort of look to that again. Hey, there's someone else from the course. Hi Tanya. I was just telling Edith, if you wanna jump in here and chat about your experience in the course that you're welcome to come, but I anyway, what I was just saying is I think more and more people are finding that online learning is like fitting exactly the bill that they want, especially now that obviously coronavirus is happening. But like I had a friend who just took an eCourse on potty training, her child. Like you can learn anything via E-Learning, you know, but there's different kinds of eCourses for those who don't know, like my other eCourse, trans vocal exploration is totally pre-filmed. So this course is like a live training where we meet once a week. And I like lecture, although I have thought about pre-recording some of the lecture material. Camille, what did you, what was your experience of like attending a live lecture? Like we had a lot of discussion in the class. Did you, was that a good thing or would you have preferred it to be like a pre-filmed lecture that you can watch at your leisure?

- I really like personally, I really liked the format of like having it live and then also having the option to re-watch it. Yeah. For me, I just like, just for like primarily like motivation. Yeah. Just to be like, to have that live thing of like, there's gonna be an actual, real human on the other side. I don't know. That's just helpful for me.

- Yeah. Me too. I find the same way. Like I've signed up for lots of courses that I've never, never fully listened to. So I have one more question and then I don't know if you have any questions for me or if there's just anything else you wanna say, but I wanna know what your, like, vision of the future is for trans voice teachers. Like I have a vision, I want there to be more, but like, what do you see in five years in this field? What do you, I don't know. It's kind of an open-ended question, but I'm just curious as to what you want the future of this practice to look like.

- Yeah. That's really interesting. I mean, like a, I wanna be a part of it.

- Yes.

- I think, yeah. I would love to see, I guess I could speak from my own experience of like singing and taking voice lessons and teaching voice lessons. I think there's like, we talk a lot in singing about like finding the right teacher for you. There's so many different approaches and even just sort of like the, I don't know, it's really personal. And there's like the vibe of the person and the personal relationship you have, not like it's not that any anything's wrong with the teacher, but sometimes it's just not the right fit personally.

- Yeah.

- So I think that's one reason why it would be so nice for trans people to have like their pick of teachers to say like, well, you know, I tried a couple and this one really, you know, just spoke to me and we got along really well. And I think that that would be the ideal is if, if there's just like whole rainbow of choices of teachers.

- Yes, yes, yes. I could not say that more eloquently. It's like, even if a teacher, you know, has nothing to do with like how good or bad of a teacher they are, it's just like you vibe with people, you know, and some people you're gonna vibe with and others you're not. And you know, you wanna be able to find a teacher who shares your experience, who you don't have to, like there's things that go unsaid, you know, like someone who shares your particular aspect of marginalization or something like, that's a really valuable thing in a teacher, you know. So the more there are the easier it is to vibe.

- Yeah, exactly.

- Is there anything you wanna add before I let you go, I've really appreciated you coming in and chatting with me about this.

- Yeah, for sure. Anything I want to add? I don't know. I guess just everyone like sign up for the course. It was like super fun. I learned so much and it just like made me really excited to like, hopefully start doing this work more in the future.

- Well, thanks so so much, Camille. I know you're gonna go on to do amazing trans voice things and you're already doing amazing things. So everyone go follow Camille. What's your, I don't know. Is it easy to like follow the other person from the live? I'm not actually sure. So maybe you could just tell us what you're.

- That's a great question.

- I have no idea. Instagram technology. Who is she? So I am @camillerogersmezzo on Instagram. I don't have Twitter 'cause I'm too scared. I also don't have TikTok cause...

- That's okay.

- My brain it's too much.

- No, I understand you there. Yeah. Well I'll let you go then, take it easy and I'll talk to you soon.

- For sure. Thanks.

- Okay. Bye. I'm not sure how to.

- Yeah. Do I have to press something?

- I think you have to leave.

- Okay. Well let's find out.

- Oh, Claire says thanks for sharing.

- Okay. I'm gonna try this. We'll see what happens.

- Okay. Thank you so much to Camille, who is still here. Give me a little like heads up if you're still in the chat, that was Camille, former student have learned to teach trans voice alteration in five weeks. Oh, I'm getting WhatsApp messages. I would love to have, I see Jasmine Vine is here. I don't know, Jasmine, do you feel like coming in and sharing your experience? Cause I know you're running some cool trans voice things yourself. I'm gonna invite you, but no pressure. This is gonna go on for an hour. I have another guest planned. What time is it now? Why does my phone not tell me the actual time? Oh, well and maybe I can also invite, Edith. Oh, I'm just checking the time. Seeing the time. 'Cause I have another guest coming at half past. Oh, okay. We still have quite a bit of time. Yeah. So this live is basically just like a Q and A session for anyone maybe interested in taking my teacher training course. But of course I'm happy to answer any trans voice questions that may come up if you have them. Oh, I'm sorry. I'm looking at my little invite to join function. Yeah. Thanks to everybody for joining. What was I gonna share? I was gonna share so some details about the course while I'm waiting for questions. So this teacher training course it's basically geared towards like singing teachers and SLPs, but specifically singing teachers who are interested in like pivoting to trans voice teaching. Cause that's what I did. Right? Like I was a singing teacher for over 10 years and then I just kind of fell backwards into teaching trans voice. And it occurred to me that like there's a lot of similarity. There's a lot of overlapping skills between teaching singing and teaching trans voice. And so I started doing that. Now it's all I do all day long, but I really want there to be more teachers of this practice. So that's why I started this teacher training course. So you don't have to have singing, a singing training like, or a teaching, a singing teacher background. But it's like really helpful to have that. The course is gonna run from February 17th until March 17th. And it's gonna be every Thursday from 11:00 AM until 2:00 PM. But you can take the course asynchronously. So if you can't make the lives, I will be recording everything and then uploading it to a member's only section of the site, along with any like downloads that, you know, the slides, any tools and resources, and you can download all those at your leisure. There's also access to a Facebook group. So all the teachers who are in the last cohort are in this Facebook group already. But so it's like not just a group for your cohort, but like a group for all the teachers who come through the training. So it's gonna grow and grow over the years, which is really exciting. It's already really nice and fun. You also get access to a couple of eBooks I created, those are free on my website anyway, but you'll get them explicitly in the course, one trans guide to vocal anatomy and another vocal anatomy coloring book, which you're welcome to share with your current students if you'd like, and I also I'm a little behind on this, but I'm going to be making a trans voice teacher directory. So one thing I get requests all the time from private students who want lessons with me, but I no longer teach private lessons 'cause I'm trying to like get this business up and running and everything. So I'm hoping to create a directory that I can send people to, of teachers that are trained by me so that I can vouch for. So now I already have like 12 teachers that are in the directory and I'm hoping to add more as I do more and more cohorts. So that's really exciting. I can't wait for that to start. I just need to get my butt on it, you know, I need to make that directory, it's on my list. I'm also in the process of making another eCourse called "Mindful voice feminization", which is currently being piloted by an organization in Toronto called Sherborne Health. We started that on Tuesday. It's really exciting. So far, this live's been pretty quiet. That's totally fine. But if there's any questions from anybody who's here, I can't tell who's here. Camille's here. Edith is here. Edith, do you wanna come and talk? I would love to have you for a minute. I just sent you an invite. No pressure of course. And I'm keeping my eyeballs on the time because I'm expecting Kassy at 6:30. Hello.

- How are you?

- I'm good. How are you?

- I'm good.

- Thanks so much for joining. I know I didn't give you like a heads up that I was doing this at all. So I really appreciate the last minute, the last minuteness of this. Thanks for joining.

- Yeah, no problem. So for people in the chat, this is Edith Hazel, or I don't know what name you're going by, is it the whole name or.

- The joys of having a dual name.

- Okay. Edith Hazel. And you wanna just introduce yourself and say who you are and what you do.

- Yeah, I'm Edith Boucher-Hazelton, also known as Edith Hazel. I am now teaching trans voice alteration.

- Whoo!

- Previously have mostly worked as a jazz singer and swing dance teacher and yeah, I guess that's it.

- Cool. And where are you based right now?

- In New York City.

- Very nice. So I'm just gonna ask you some of the same questions I asked Camille, how has it been since you finished taking the course, "Learn to teach trans voice alteration in five weeks".

- So good. I've started teaching and I've gotten really good feedback from my students and yeah, I'm really happy about it. I was just thinking, I actually just taught lesson like right before this and I was just thinking about how like, well constructed your pedagogy was like, I feel like I'm I know like I just like transcribed what you said into my own notes. And then I was like, I feel like I have all of my tools there. Like it's not, I know it was very intuitive and like very like, I like how it related to the anatomy of the voice. So I feel like everything was like very clear.

- Oh, thank you so much. I'm really glad that it's helping. So you had not done any teaching of trans voice before the course?

- Nope. Just teaching singing.

- Okay. And what do you, this was like the last question I asked Camille, but like what is your hope for the future of trans voice? What do you wanna see going forward?

- I mean, I was there when you were talking about it, but yeah. Like I absolutely agree that the more teachers there are, the more it's accessible, especially because like out of all things that are part of the trans experience, like this one doesn't need to be medicalized. And so just having that be so much more accessible, seems like a really good idea, having different people who can do it, who like, yeah, that will look like you or, you know, have similar personalities or whatever, like people you click with, it's helpful. And yeah, I don't know it's just such a beautiful field and something that I wouldn't have thought of as a singer, as a singing teacher, but like, it makes so much sense to do as well.

- Totally right?

- And also you know, even just as a singing teacher, like if you have a student that shows up who's trans, like what do you do, you know?

- Yeah. We spent a lot of time in the course, like doing trans 101. Which not every person in the course I think needed. But what was your experience of like having a mixed group of CIS and trans singing teachers?

- Oh, it was kind of cool. Like it was, I felt like it allowed for certain people to like pitch in more and talk about their own experiences. So I feel like that was like a plus for the CIS folks, but it was also like, I know everyone was just so lovely and like, I felt like also having the assumption that some people wouldn't know stuff. Like I learned things even though I already knew a lot about, you know, so.

- So did I and I was teaching the course.

- Yeah.

- That was great. Yeah. There were like lots of like just people sharing their experience. Like there's just no way any one teacher can know everything about all of trans experience. Like it's not possible. So yeah. That's, I mean, I think that was like fundamental in the course was like the student is the expert, right?

- Yeah.

- And I experienced that in this course as well, which was super cool. Had you had any experience with e-learning before?

- No, not at all. I, at the beginning of the pandemic, I was very upset about all of the e-learning, but now I feel like I've, I've been converted. I love it. I've been teaching online too.

- Okay. And how's that going for you?

- Well. Yeah.

- Yeah.

- I find it a really easy way to be able to teach. I know, I thought it would be much harder, but. I feel like...

- Are your students then based in New York or are they international?

- Some of them are in Montreal. Some of them are in New York. My two cities, but yeah, it's I can teach anywhere.

- That is so cool. I love that. Do you think you'll continue with e-learning like teaching online after the pandemic?

- Yeah. I mean, for me both taking classes and giving classes online, like I, yeah, at first, like I got really bogged down on the idea that like, it would be kind of awkward and the technology would get in the way and like, I didn't like it, but finally I realized like, I, you know, I already kind of live in between two cities in between Montreal and New York. And so being able to bring the course that I'm taking or that I'm giving with me, is just so helpful. So no, to me, it's a huge advantage to be able to do that.

- Yeah. I think we have had one guy in Germany who was like in a cafe in the Ukraine for like an entire day of the course. Yeah. Like you really can go anywhere and, and take courses. So that's really cool.

- Yeah.

- And I like the flexibility of like having things recorded too. Like, you know, I don't know if you missed a class, but like some people did for whatever reason.

- Yeah.

- And like, you can just watch it after. Did, did you have that experience? I can't remember.

- Well, I was there for all of the classes, but I've been every time I have like a little moment of like, Hmm, you know, I'm looking at my notes. I'm like, what was that? And like, now I can just go back and like, listen to the thing. And yeah. It feels like, I don't know. It feels like it's, I can keep learning from the lessons that have already happened in time, you know?

- Totally. Totally. And have you stayed in touch with any of the people in the cohort?

- Well, we've added each other on social media, but I feel like I look forward to a potentially like a post pandemic time where it might be easier to connect with people.

- I know. I know. But even before the pandemic, like people who do the same thing, don't always have the opportunity to get together, right. Like bass players don't ever play together, you know, that kind of thing. I really like the idea of trans voice teachers specifically, like being in a community where they can share resources because like, you know, my pedagogy, isn't the end all be all. Like, there's gonna be way more exercises. You're gonna invent exercises. People are gonna have ideas or see things or write books. And yeah, like the community of sharing is like super important.

- Yeah. Yeah. I really liked having the Facebook group for all the students of the cohort, 'cause like, I don't know. I feel like that's a place that even in a couple months, like if I have a question or thought, something I wanna share, like we, we have a way to communicate altogether. And I thought that was really cool.

- Yeah. Me too. So people can follow you. Where do people find you, Edith?

- Well, you can follow me here, but that's my personal account that doesn't have much on it. But my musician account is @edith_hazel_music and I can put in the comments.

- That'd be good, anywhere else they can find you. That's it.

- Yeah. Good. That's good enough. Now my social media game.

- No, don't worry. Don't worry. Don't worry. Does anyone have in the comments, have any questions for myself or for Edith? We haven't had like a very, very question heavy live, but if anyone, I'm gonna see who's here before I let you go. Okay. Well anyway, I'll let you go here cause I'm expecting another guest like right about now, but thank you so much for joining at this last minute thing. I really appreciated you coming in and talking to me.

- Yeah, my pleasure. All right. I think you have to press something to, okay, talk to you later. Oh, just technology. We're all figuring it out. Let me see here. There we go. Thank you so much, Edith. All right. So we're expecting another person now or now-ish. We'll see, but if anyone has any questions, I'm happy to field them. I'm gonna be doing this for another half hour. Let's see. Oh, I see. Okay. I'm just looking at all the options here and also you're welcome to a request to join the live if you oh, there's Edith has just posted in the comment there where you can follow them. @edith_hazel_music Yeah. So if you're just joining us, this is a teaching trans voice Q and A. Oh, there is Kassy. Hello. Do you want to, I think it's Kassy. This is like a different handle than I'm used to, anyway for those just joining. This is a teaching trans voice Q and A, the doors are open for registration for my oh yeah, it's Kassy, the registration is open for the upcoming cohort and we've just been talking to people about their experience. So I'm gonna add Kassy now. Just waiting. Hello.

- Hi.

- How you doing, Kassy?

- I'm good. It's so good to see your face.

- So good to see yours. Thanks so much for joining.

- Of course.

- So we already talked to Camille and Edith today, which is so nice.

- Nice.

- And so I'll start with the same question I started with them. How has it been since the end of the class? That ended in November, December.

- Really great. I reached out to, and we've talked about this before, I live in the Midwest, which is, you know, we'll say a little behind, in some ways we'll say that. So I have less resources here in Wisconsin, but I reached out to actually a trans woman who is a comedian in the Madison area. And we had this great conversation and I had sort of tried to work with her to figure out ways that I could sort of offer my new skills. And what's really funny is that what came out of it was some people that I could contact, but also she's actually super interested in working on her singing voice.

- Oh, cool. What was fascinating is that she was like, I wanna make it super clear that I am not interested in changing my speaking voice. And this was something that you had talked about just because she transitioned to woman does not mean that she feels like she needs to feminize her voice, which is, it was really cool to hear somebody say that, but instead wants to work on her singing voice.

- That is so interesting. So just like general singing technique kind of thing.

- Yeah. Yeah. She used to sing when she lived on the west coast and said she kind of got away from it. And one of those things she'd like to get back to, so it we're going to do that. But with, you know, in a funny way, not that's sort of what I thought the conversation was gonna be.

- Well, you know, this is the thing actually though, when you reach out to trans people and just like, let them know that like you're a safe resource like that you're a safe person to talk to. Like they come to you.

- Yeah.

- You know, like, I don't know in Montreal we have like the one mechanic that all the queer people go to because like, we all know that like he's the guy.

- Yeah.

- And there's like a little underground whisper network that trans people use to spread resources. So I think, you know, you're, if you tap into that, you're golden.

- Yeah.

- So I wanted to ask, had you had any experience with e-learning before my course?

- Yes.

- Can you tell me like how this compared to those other experiences?

- Yeah. Yours was amazing and I told you this in our sort of exit interview, 'cause I'm, I'm pretty tight and, and I'm Scorpio. So I say what I'm feeling and I, so I, good for you that I really loved your program, but it was very well organized

- Thank you.

- which is super important to me. I get real panicky when things are all over the place and I mean, everything that you laid out and you said it was gonna happen, it happened on a timeline that you said it was going to happen.

- We try.

- Yeah. Which I really appreciated and, and keep, I mean, obviously I understand that people have real lives and things happen and you know, but it, I appreciated that very much at the same time actually. And I'm just finishing that up. I was in a voice teacher business training program that was all entirely virtual as well. And that was, that was equally organized and really, really well put together. I feel like prior to that, and maybe it was just that more people were trying virtual that hadn't in the past. Yeah.

- Yeah. I mean, but we're all pivoting, right? Like lots of people have sort of started pivoting to online learning and online teaching specifically.

- Yeah.

- And it's a different skill. Like we're all.

- Totally. And we're all figuring it out. I mean, yeah. I mean, March of, I don't know, a hundred years ago, I don't even know when it was, we had completely, I, I hear it's two years ago, but yeah. We all had to make that pivot. And so, but you know, like I attended one where it was, I think it was like a vocal anatomy workshop kind of thing. And it was, it was quite literally just material read to us and I'm gonna be honest, I left early, you know? Yeah. It was just, and it just, it was what it was, this was some somebody just trying to figure it out, but yours is just so organized. And I felt like, oddly enough, the test that you gave us was really what helped seal everything in. It kind of forced me to go back through my notes and really let rise to the top. What was most important, what those, sort of top tier takeaways should have been. And then our conversation afterwards was also really helpful because we could talk through the things that I had sort of missed in the test. And you just get that. I've not had that in other trainings.

- I'm glad. Yeah. I mean, I'm glad you got it for me. Not that you didn't have it in other trainings.

- Yeah.

- Yeah. Well the test, my first draft of the test was like about twice as long, then I was like, okay, Renée, like we gotta start editing here. And that's exactly what I did was just like, make sure that the most important takeaways were there. I just see that Cammy is in the chat right now. Hi Cammy. We've already had three other people from the last cohort join. So if you wanted to join after Kassy, you'd be welcome to come and say hello.

- Yay.

- So my question now for you is like, this is an odd question. Where do you see trans voice teaching sort of fitting in to the larger world of like singing trainings? You know, like there's like Fitz Morris technique and what do you call it? Somatic voice work. And like, I don't know, like this is still like a very niche part of training. It's not really singing either. You know what I mean? So where do you see this fitting in the future?

- Well, I can use an example in my own life that I think affects the greater spectrum. I mean, I've been teaching for over 20 years and I'm leaning now toward recognizing where I really want to be of service. Core educators are really on my target right now because I'm starting to realize more and more what they are not getting and what they should be getting. And, you know, in that is, you know, even remotely. And again, I'm speaking from the perspective of the United States. They're not getting training in how to sing contemporary styles, anything other than sort of coral music. And I told you during our program, I think numerous times actually that what you're teaching should be taught at the college level. It should be taught to voice majors, mandatory. It should also be mandatory in coral education programs. Like there may be some schools throughout the US and maybe in Canada and other parts of the world that are offering it, but I'm not seeing it yet. And what's happening. And I'm married to a choir director is now he's getting non-binary kids and kids that are looking at even hormone replacement. And, you know, he's trying to navigate for them in a world that has such gender biased languaging used around the voice.

- Yes. Yeah, absolutely.

- So I watch that and think, you know, my next steps is I want to be able to be useful to coral directors and even offering like supplemental training for them in the summers and things is that is to try to incorporate this as well. So I think that that will have a huge impact globally and it's not a, it should trickle in like it needs to be there. It should have been there yesterday, kind of.

- Yeah. When I first like announced this course back in October or whatever, I did get a lot of singing teachers asking me if it was for teaching trans people, but singing. And I was like, it's not, but like, you know, there's a lot of information within this course that I think would definitely benefit singing teachers. I just don't know if I should, just make like a course, like just how to be like trans 1 0 1 for singing teachers or something. Like, I'm not sure what the next step needs to be, you know?

- Sure. Yeah. And I think, I mean, I'm a teacher that tends to go from speech quality first, 'cause we spoke before we sang.

- Yeah. And that's, you know, sort of reptilian brain versus higher brain, all of that. So I think it's really important actually that you start with the speaking voice and it's very important for us as voice teachers to not ignore the speaking voice. Like we gotta get in there 'cause if there's problems there, it's gonna present problems in the singing voice. And so if somebody's not even settled in a voice that matches where they want to be, who they wanna be, what they wanna sound like, you can't even get into the singing yet. That's too far down the road.

- Yeah.

- That being said, I think it would be amazing if you offered a program for coral educators and voice teachers and people who were specifically singing, but you cannot, you know, as my family's expression, you cannot put the cart before the horse.

- No. Yeah, you're absolutely right. I just got a comment from Cammy. Ask if I'm gonna save this live. I think so. I don't know if I can do that. I'll try, I'll try to save this live so you can watch it later. Yeah. So for the people who are just joining us, we are talking about teaching trans voice, particularly speaking voice, but also as it relates to singing and the people who are my guests, So Kassy here, have all been former members of this course. So people who have participated in the last cohort of "Learn to teach trans voice alteration in five weeks". And if you have any questions, this is a Q and A, so you're welcome to drop 'em in the chat and we'll do our best to answer them. So Kassy, you had probably the most experience I think in the class, like I remember getting your application, I was like this person has 20 years of experience, what am I doing teaching them, but how did it feel coming in? Like, I don't know. I don't know how I wanna phrase this question. Like I can see that it might be challenging with so much experience to be open, to like letting in these new ideas, like how was that for you? Was it challenging or are you just really like adept at letting things in like that?

- That's how I roll. I like to scare the crap outta myself on a regular basis with new things, because otherwise I feel like, like my biggest fear as a teacher is like stagnating and not, and I love to learn. And so, you know, and I mean, I was intimidated because I just wasn't sure. And we had discussed this. I mean, I feel like my job is sort of the, this CIS hetero woman is to just like shut up and listen and learn. But you held a super open and really compassionate space. And so I felt like I could speak and ask questions. And it was, you made a really lovely, comfortable space and it was such an amazing group.

- Yes.

- And so incredibly diverse. And I learned so, so much from the lovely humans that were a part of the training. And so it was, I was just floating after our first lunch when I came wafting out. My husband's like, clearly it's going well.

- I'm so happy to hear that. Actually, that kinda reminds me of a question I wanted to ask. So had you had experience in mixed groups of CIS and trans people before, was this one of your first experience? Like what was, did you know any trans people before? I don't even have any clue about what.

- I have worked probably more with non-binary folks. I have a couple of non-binary kiddos in my studio. I have, I'm trying to think. I mean, no, not really. And that's makes me sad 'cause we live in a pretty again, the Midwest is.

- I mean there are definitely trans people in the Midwest, but like my question was more like, how was that experience for you? Like coming in and being a part of this mixed group.

- Yeah, it was, it was actually really nice because, and again, I learned so much because you, you know, you had such a great group of people from different backgrounds and well, like you had somebody who could speak very directly to their experience with being because he was on it going through puberty, you know, and the good and the not so good. And that was really, really helpful. And I mean, you know, this, and this is why you did it. And this is why you brought in all of the guests so that we could actually watch and experience what somebody is going through and how different the experience is for each person, dependent upon so many things, cultural things and their own personal expectations. And then, you know, sort of, this was the female voice. This was the male voice they had to put themselves in that spectrum. So yeah, it was incredibly helpful to have sort of the diverse spectrum of folks that you had. I feel like I learned a lot from that experience as well.

- I'm really glad. So feel free to pass on this question, but was anything surprising? Like did anything, I don't know, shift your paradigm?

- Not necessarily surprising. And in all fairness, I had already started reading books prior to this.

- Great.

- And then realized that that was it's wasn't enough. So most of it, I knew I was like, there were things that I learned about the impact of both testosterone and estrogen that I did not fully understand. Honestly, the things that were, that really sort of blew my mind., and I guess, because I just didn't think through it is when we had the conversation about, not only sort of society viewpoint of what the feminine voice is versus the masculine voice, but also what goes on culturally and where pitch wise, one voice is supposed to sit and then how accents and dialects and things like that come in. That was something that left me pondering for days.

- Okay.

- Cause I just hadn't, I hadn't thought about it.

- Yeah. We had a really culturally diverse group too. Right. There was 12 countries or something like that, like, I don't know, five countries and a bunch of different languages, like it was really cool.

- Yeah.

- Yeah. So I, this is just purely out of my own curiosity, but how did you hear about this course in the first place? Like we didn't know each other before the course, right? Like you found. Okay. Tell me about that.

- I feel like you posted it in, was it like voice geeks or had I joined the trans voice Facebook group?

- Oh, it might have been that, yeah. That voice geeks.

- Yes.

- Facebook Group.

- I think it was posted in there and said, because it was some, one of the groups, it was in Facebook and you had said something like, "Hey, would anybody interested in learning more about trans voices" and then, I think we had to like message you. And then you sent information.

- Old school, email. Cool. Well, Kassy, where can people find and follow you and get in touch with you if they want private lessons or anything like that?

- Yeah. So my studio is called JK Creative Practices. So I logged in on my personal Instagram, 'cause I didn't even know if actually, if you knew the name of my business and I was like, I don't want her to be like, who is this?

- No, No. I knew, I knew.

- Yeah. And I'm on the Instagram. We're on Instagram, we're on Facebook. And then obviously our website as well. So you can check us out there. Yes. JK creative practices. When you exit this live, you can put in the comments, the name of that.

- Got it.

- Instagram. So people can find you. Is there anything else you wanna, or people in the lives is there, do you have any questions for Kassy about her experience taking the course or for me about teaching trans voice? We haven't received a ton of questions today, but I'm happy to feel any. Oh, there's a little hello. Hi there, message. I'm just looking through the messages. Yeah. So Kassy, do you have any parting words before I let you go?

- I just, if there's any voice teachers on here who are considering it, I just think this is a must have in your toolbox. It just really is. We should not be without this information.

- Thanks Kassy.

- Obviously Renée is so incredibly capable and very, very academic, without being pretentious. That's quite a balance to strike here.

- Thank you. I appreciate that. Thank you so much. Well, thanks so much. I'm not sure what buttons you have to press to leave the live, but you're welcome to step out. But so thanks for being here today, Kassy.

- Thanks so much for having me. We'll see you soon.

- Okay. See ya. Bye. All right. So that was Kassy. Isn't she so sweet. We had a really nice group of like CIS people, trans people, super experienced voice teachers, speech, language pathologists. Oh, I'm seeing some people who are friends in the chat, who is still here. Yeah. So we have about, I think 10 or so minutes left before I'm gonna end this live. Yeah. 10 minutes. Does anybody have any questions about the course, about teaching trans voice, about me? I'm happy to answer any old thing. So yeah. I'll just tell us while I'm waiting for questions. I'll just again, give you some information about the course. The course is called, "Learn to teach trans voice alteration in five weeks". It's a five week live course, starting on February 17th, going to March 17th. It'll be every Thursday at 11:00 AM to 2:00 PM. But if you can't take it live, you can take it asynchronously. I would love to hear the answer to the questions you had in your post about this live, the questions you had in your post. Did I have questions in my post about this live like in the original Instagram post? No, I'm not sure what the questions were and I can't go check because I'm on my phone doing the live. I've lost my little train. Oh yeah. So the how to connect with students, how much to charge safe? I didn't see those questions in. Oh my gosh. Okay. Yeah. Great questions. I will answer them right now. Kassy says thanks so much. She can be reached @infoatjkcreativepractices.com and yeah, go ahead and follow her at JK creative practices. So wow. Those are giant questions, Edith, how to connect with students. So I'll start with that one. I think the most important thing is to always remember that the student is the expert on their experience and on themself. And so when a student is coming to you, you are in almost the learning position from the start, right? Like you don't know who they are, you don't know what their goals are. So in order to connect with a student, you have to really listen. And that also speaks to how to create a safe space. There are other things in terms of creating a safe space like learning about, you know, being culturally sensitive, being sensitive to language, and you could allow people to bring their child or their service animal, or you could provide bus fare or personal hygiene products in your bathroom. There's so many, so many, so many ways to make your space safe. I used to keep like I'm on the back of my toilet, a little bucket with just like, assorted objects, you know, like tampons and pads, but also like condoms or bus fair, like little tickets when we could still have that. I think, I can't remember what else was in there. Little hand sanitizers and things like that. I posted the questions. Oh yeah, right. Sorry. I remember now. Right. Okay. I remember now Edith, thank you. Yeah. And then about what to charge, like Edith, you and I talked about this, so like this is a challenging thing. I think what to charge really depends on a lot of things. It depends on your skill level. So, you know, someone might decide to, you know, teach for free when they're just starting out, just so that they can collect some data and learn about how to do this. And then of course you have to be charging something that like allows you to value your time. I think when I stopped teaching, I was charging about $80 an hour for $70 an hour, something like that. But of course like that now in a year that'll be dated information. And yeah, it also really depends on like what you're comfortable with. Some people do sliding scale. Some people offer shorter lessons, 30 minutes, 20 minutes even. Some people do like a lottery. Like they have like a limited number of free lessons per month. Everyone pays for like a fixed high price and then you have like a lottery for the free lessons that you're able to give. I've done that model. There's so many ways to charge for private lessons. Okay. Sylvia asks, "Are you saving this live? I've joined late". I think I'm gonna save it because other people have asked, I don't know how to save it. So if I fail to do so, it's not because I didn't want to, it's because I've messed up the technology, but I'll try, but Sylvia, if you have any questions, please feel free to ask them and I'll be happy to answer them. And Edith asks, "How do you find students"? We'll that's the question? So I think the best way that in my experience is to connect with organizations that do outreach to trans people. One of the, the ways I used to get students, like at the start of my trans voice teaching career was through project 10, which is an organization here in Montreal. And they had hired me to do some workshops. And then ever since then they had been well since then, since that first workshop, they would send me students all the time. Anytime somebody would come to them, looking for that service, they only knew me basically, so you know, connecting with the organizations in your area is a really good way to start. And of course, if you don't have any organizations in your immediate area, well, we live in the age of online learning. So you can really connect with any organization. It doesn't have to be in your area. I've now taught workshops for organizations in Toronto and Montreal and Ottawa, but also Ireland and the UK, I'd really like to start teaching in France and Australia, at some point, you know. The world is your oyster. As long as you put yourself out there. And then there's like the trans whisper network that we were talking about earlier. Like if you advertise yourself as safe to trans people, it will not take long for trans people to find you, because there are so few people out there who are safe for trans people. Like it's shocking, actually, you know, like in Montreal we have a couple of different Facebook groups where, you know, people will share that kind of information. So you could look for those Facebook groups, but you could also advertise yourself like in the traditional away on different sites for advertising services, like here it's Kigigi, I think in the states it's Craigslist and France it's you know, every place is a different website for that kind of thing. Facebook marketplace. Yeah. There are so many, so many ways be creative. Ah, I got a, we are so proud of you. Thank you so much. That's so sweet. Thank you, Edith, for all those questions. My goodness. And for reminding me what my own questions were. Yeah. I base those questions on questions that I had received and answered in emails, but I thought I would share are the answers here. So I'm glad that you reminded me to do so. Oh, there's a question down here. Let me look at that. How long do you find it usually takes people to reach their voice goals with regular practice? So that's a very challenging question, obviously, because everybody has different abilities skills. I find that like, if you are a musician and you already have the experience of, or having a regular practice, you're usually more set up for success. It's funny. Like people can make the new voice very quickly. Like I've had students like see the results of the work in like, you know, two months, it doesn't take a long, the long part is the re-habituation. So it's not hard to create the voice, but it is hard to use the voice without too much thought. Right? So like that part can take anywhere from six months to years, but you know, you never kind of stop working at it. It's kind of like singing in that way. Like people will ask, how long does it take to learn to sing? And it's like, well, trust me, once you start, you will find out that you're gonna be sort of doing it forever. You'll never stop learning and never stop working at it. But eventually you get to a point where you settle into a comfort zone and that can take any number of years. Like for me as a singer, I started singing when I was 17, 18. And then I became like really comfortable at 25, but you know, with speaking, it'll be earlier. Oh, Ty is here. Hi, Ty. I was just gonna wrap up this live, but I have been sort of interviewing people who have gone through the course. So if you're interested in popping in and saying, hello, you are welcome to do so. Let me see if I can request you, but of course, no pressure. Yeah. So this is a teaching Q and A. Oh, there's Ty. Hi, Ty.

- I was just laying in bed.

- Sorry, I should have, I didn't like give you any heads up, but I've been interviewing some students and I thought, oh, hello, there's Ty.

- So that's cool.

- Yeah. This is just like a little live Q and A about teaching trans voice. And I had Camille, Edith and Kassy on. So it's very cool to see you too. How has it been since you finished the course?

- It's been great. I think in general, teaching has been a bit easier for me. I have all my notes, so yeah, a lot of really great exercises that I kind of stole from you.

- That's what you learned, that's not stealing.

- I just thought it was funny.

- That is so cute. So you, maybe the only person in the cohort who had had trans voice teaching experience, I think, can you tell the people in the live a little bit about what that experience was like coming in as a person who had knowledge previously?

- Yeah. So I've been teaching trans voice for, I guess a year now. It's been a year since January, which is very exciting. And I guess going into the course, I was honestly pretty unfamiliar with most vocal things because I studied instrumental music education when I went to school. So I'm not completely familiar with like anything vocal wise besides what I was taught through my job. And I think it was just really great to get some refreshers from a different voice. And especially since I haven't done the training, like six months, actually longer eight months, it was like eight months since I've like done any like training since 'cause I trained very early on in January, February, March last year and then had nothing because I was like, I feel great about this. And then I think after having a break and then going into training again was really, really good for like refreshing everything that I need to be working on.

- Nice. Yeah, and as singing teachers, like we can always, or voice teachers, voice professionals, we can always be like learning new things, new trainings. How did this training compare to your last training? Like we're I'm sure 'cause everyone has like a different approach to this. So I'm interested to hear like how their approach, your jobs approach differed to my approach.

- Yeah. So your approach was definitely much more structured with like the PowerPoints and the handouts was very structured and very good for my brain because I need everything to be organized and I need everything to have pictures. So very organized in that sense. The training I got through my company was very much like we, we had handouts and we like kind of briefly went over them. And then I met with both of my bosses and they trained me. And the nice thing about teaching trans voice is like, you can literally teach any way you like, like if there's some things that you really like that you think are effective, you can teach it that way. So like all of the teachers through our company, we all kind of have like our own thing that we do, which is nice.

- That's so cool. Had you ever done online learning before this course? Like, had you ever taken an eCourse before?

- Actually, no. Now that I think about it, I think this is my first time.

- What was that like? Were you happy with that experience?

- It's hard on my brain to do online stuff. So like I don't really like to have my camera on, so it was nice that I could have like my camera off and be like looking around at all the posters on my wall and fidgeting with something. So that was really nice that I can do that in my own space. I think for up to two hours I was great. And then as like soon as we hit lunchtime, I was like dead for the rest of the time.

- So did you make use of the recorded classes?

- Yeah.

- Okay. That's cool. Oh, sorry go ahead.

- Oh, I was saying those were easy to go through because then I could like speed it up a little bit. So I could like take notes.

- Oh. Smart. Yes, of course. I didn't even think about that. What was your experience being in like a mixed group of CIS and trans people? How was that for you?

- It was very good. I was very impressed by how it was handled. Just because in my workspace I'm used to like exclusively working with trans people. So sometimes I forget that like CIS people don't know everything that we know. So.

- Kind of shocking and fascinating, right.

- I think it was handled very well and I felt very comfortable in that space.

- I'm glad. I'm really glad to hear that. How do you feel about CIS people teaching trans voice alteration? Like I made a conscious choice not to exclude CIS teachers just because I want there to be as many teachers as possible and singing teachers already have this information, but I have heard some people like, not want to learn from a CIS teacher, but what do you, do you have feelings about that? I'm just interested.

- I think, if anybody can teach it, they should, obviously it's the student's preference.

- Yeah.

- If they want someone who is CIS, if they don't mind that I don't think people are really gonna mind that, but I'm sure that people would want to have a trans teacher. I feel like that would be a more fun experience, but like.

- Yeah, it really depends.

- I don't see anything wrong with that.

- Nice. And what do you hope to see in this field in like five years? Like what do you wish the landscape of this field to look like in five years.

- More accessible and more well known? I feel like not a lot of people know this, unless that they're like actively trying to find it.

- Yeah. Quite a thing, huh? Yeah. When I tell people about my job as a lot of people are like, I didn't even know that was a thing.

- I didn't know it was a thing until last year when I was hired.

- So you had never had any voice experience, like what made you decide to pursue this?

- So I have had voice experience, but not like professionally.

- I see. So I wanted to be a band or choir teacher. And like, I've been in a bunch of choirs in my life, but I've never taken private lessons. And I was working at my first job after graduating Woo hoo. It was in a public school. I was a choir teacher and a guitar teacher. And because of the pandemic, I was just hating it. I was not having a good time. I was just, you know, wow, this is my first job and I hate it. And my partner mentioned to me like, "Hey, aren't there like those things that like trans people work on their voice". I was like, "I've never heard of that". And I like researched it and I was trying to figure out how like people get trained for it. 'cause or the love of God could not figure out how people got trained for it. I was searching for hours. I couldn't find it. And then I found the company that I worked for and I just like asked them like, how do y'all train your people? Blah, blah, blah. And then they asked me for an interview and I kinda, it was just kind of like fell into my lap.

- Oh it was meant to be then clearly. But yeah, like your experience of searching for this information because you wanna be a teacher, who does this. It's like, you're not the only person I've met who has come up completely empty when they've looked for this kind of training. So that's why I started this course in the first place was so that I could take the work that I had already done to like cobble together a training for myself and just give it to other people.

- Yeah.

- And it's been awesome.

- Well, so where can people find you if they wanted to take a private lesson from you?

- Sure. So I just recently made a website for myself. I don't know what the website is called because it has Wix in it. But if you wanna go to my Instagram and click on the link on my link tree, it's listed in my link tree.

- Fabulous. Well, I won't keep you any longer. Do you have any parting words you wanna say before I let you leave.

- Oh no. I was just gonna go take a nap.

- Well, enjoy your nap. Say hi to all your rats and your various menagerie over there.

- Okay. Thanks Renée. Bye.

- Take it easy Ty. All right. So that was Ty. Wow. Four students from the previous cohort pop in. How lovely. So I'm gonna end this here unless there is any final questions, before I wrap it up, "Learn to teach trans voice alteration in five weeks", is happening on February 17th. The registrations open now, it'll be open until February 10th. And then after that, I think the next cohort won't be until the fall, probably. If you have any questions, you can email [email protected] and I will get you or someone will get you the answer. But otherwise, thanks so much for being here, for asking questions and for listening. I'm super excited to start this next cohort and teach the next generation of trans voice teachers because the last one was so great and we've already got people signed up for the next one, but space is limited. So don't wait, do register soon. And like I said, you can take this course asynchronously. So you know, if you're not able to come to all the classes or you can only do some or none, we had some people not come to the live classes at all. You're welcome to just show up, welcome to watch the recordings rather on your own time. That's all for me. I have been Renée Yoxon as you know, and yeah, have a good night. I'll talk to you later. Bye.