My voice journey

[anjaq]

Well I guess I gained a bit more femininity and pitch but need to figure out if I can improve my voice quality somehow to not have to say I paid with that for it.

Here are two comparison pre op recordings, because I think vocaroo deleted teh old ones I had in the thread before:
http://vocaroo.com/i/s1cPWjRUl9fC , http://vocaroo.com/i/s0NX0wWS5Y8p  - those were pretty much my relaxed (but modified from the original) pre op voice, one of them is very slightly elevated - the way I probably do it now to get to 185 Hz as average. I dont know the pitch readings on those old ones, I guess they are as usual around 140-150 Hz.

Regarding singing. At the 8 weeks mark I tried and I was happy because it was much easier to reach the higher singing voice notes (like E,F,G4 and a bit above). But I was frustrated about my vocal break and the singing voice below the break was not reall great. So I could sing rather good in my head voice, it was just very hard to hit the right notes, as the reaction of the voice to my muscles was very different. Honestly I must say that between week 8 and 15, the singing was better than after that period, when Botox was wearing off. A lot of things seem to have gotten harder since then, so definitely the Botox was necessary for me - So I honestly consider to see if things will change with just getting over the next 6 months until the official healing period is over and if I still have these issues try if getting another Botox shot will help me along...

[cindianna_jones]

Anjaq, I don't think you have any issues at all. As you become more comfortable in speaking situations, you'll discover just how much your attitude adjustment will improve the things people have mentioned. Those issues are insignificant to me. I hear plenty of resonance. Don't worry about it. In other words, you sound delightful.

Cindi

[anjaq]

Ok, so a quick update - the clonazepam ran out about 2 weeks ago (now about 8 months post op), before that I had to take half a pill and then quarter of a pill for a week each because I could not take the withdrawal when I tried to stop completely (I was careful and tried that stunt before all the pills were gone).

I had quite a few side effects from stopping the pills - opposed to having no side effects while I was on them at all. But when I stopped, I had some dizzyness, nervousness, increased tendency for muscle cramps, belly cramps. My throat felt rougher, dry and I have a foreign body sensation in it at times.

Pitch dropped by about 2 semitones, so my relaxed voice now averages at 160 Hz (but its not hard to use a little bit of effort and control and get to 180 or even 200 Hz). I sent in my voice files to Dr Kim and he basically suggests I should take more clonazepam - or one of the two alternatives he suggests. He does not recommend Botox though, even though I would be more comfortable with that rather than those pills. But he writes that my pitch has stabilized, so I should not do Botox.
I am not sure what he means with that - my pitch has stabilized at 160 Hz? 

I am not quite happy with taking more pills though - I did not have the impression that they helped THAT much and in the end I will have to live without those pills - I can't take them forever... so I am really unsure if I should follow Dr Kims advice now - in addition to that, no doctor I know of would prescribe me an antiepileptic psychopharmaceutical drug for pitch instability in the voice - up to now most said that their recommendations would be voice therapy instead. One even said I should do psychotherapy because the psyche has such a big influence on the voice.

So my tendency is that I probably have to deal with the remaining issues with conventional voice rehab. The remaining issues (if I take it that the base pitch now has stabilized as he said) are pitch instability (I can not hold one pitch and maintain it for some seconds), voice break (strong pitch instability at around the C4 note, around 250 Hz), some remaining hoarseness or breathiness and some tension, which mainly comes when I try to speak in a bit elevated voice to be in the ~200 Hz range instead of 160 Hz for a longer time.

Does anyone have suggestions?

[anjaq]

Ok - I forgot to add voice samples of course

Here they are:
http://vocaroo.com/i/s0D50Inxxc4H - relaxed , some hours after the last voice exercises
http://vocaroo.com/i/s0FO2r51BaJm - slightly controlled (mainly for modulation and resonance), right after voice exercises

So those exercises seem to do something, also keeping an eye on the voice helps - to prevent it from totally relaxing. However I must say that even in the relaxed state, it is still in a neutral pitch and thus (because of all the other parameters than pitch) most likely perceived as female - this is great because it really means that if I relax (or get drunk), my voice will only fall into a neutral pitch, not below, hopefully.

[Dena]

What I noticed about both samples is you are a master of inflection. You use it in a very feminine manner and even at 160 Hz the voice is yelling female. As for drinking and the effect on the voice, I don't know about that one because I don't drink but I suspect if you use the voice enough it will become a habit and if you are like me, you forget how to use the chest voice. Even after surgery and the recovery I fall into a relaxed trained voice or a sweet spot trained voice depending on if I am in a laid back mode or alert mode.

[kwala]

Ok - I forgot to add voice samples of course

Here they are:
http://vocaroo.com/i/s0D50Inxxc4H - relaxed , some hours after the last voice exercises
http://vocaroo.com/i/s0FO2r51BaJm - slightly controlled (mainly for modulation and resonance), right after voice exercises

So those exercises seem to do something, also keeping an eye on the voice helps - to prevent it from totally relaxing. However I must say that even in the relaxed state, it is still in a neutral pitch and thus (because of all the other parameters than pitch) most likely perceived as female - this is great because it really means that if I relax (or get drunk), my voice will only fall into a neutral pitch, not below, hopefully.

Sounding great.  Your voice always sounds good but I'm noticing a lot more clarity in these recent takes.

[anjaq]

Sounding great.  Your voice always sounds good but I'm noticing a lot more clarity in these recent takes.

Yes - I think that is in part due to the longer healing time, and in part because the clonazepam is not dampening it anymore, I feel definitely that my voice is more free without the pills. So it also has something positive, but the downsides are those increased vocal tremors and resulting pitch instability.

What I noticed about both samples is you are a master of inflection. You use it in a very feminine manner and even at 160 Hz the voice is yelling female. As for drinking and the effect on the voice, I don't know about that one because I don't drink but I suspect if you use the voice enough it will become a habit and if you are like me, you forget how to use the chest voice. Even after surgery and the recovery I fall into a relaxed trained voice or a sweet spot trained voice depending on if I am in a laid back mode or alert mode.

Thats funny - Inflection was actually something I was told was a problem pre op, so maybe the surgery helped me there because inflection now just comes without having to force it, unlike before the surgery. That would be an interesting effect

I dont think my voice would be gendered male now. Maybe in bad conditions on the phone it may be ambiguous at times, but overall, I believe I dont need to worry about that anymore. Before the surgery my voice was perceived mostly female already, except when I really dropped it low - like the C3 or D3 range on average. Now that range is only  part of some words, so its not really that much of an issue anymore and going b elow C3 is taking effort, while before it was really easy and actually in a way comfortable to drop to A2.

What does not happen anymore and did not really happen for years is for me to drop into the really bad "male resonance" pattern - I think I did that a few times post op while the voice was still very weak and not yet healed, but nowadays I am back to not having that issue too much, hopefully not even when I am drunk.

So it really takes a way a lot of the stress and anxiety I had before the surgery about my voice. It may not be perfect and not as high pitched as with some other Yeson patients, but I can use it without thinking much and not be asked weird questions...

[iKate]

I wouldn't lie, I love wine and other spirits and I have it often (in moderation). My voice doesn't seem to be affected. However I am sure to follow it up with water.

You sound pretty good. I tell people don't get hung up on pitch. I would never read "male" or trans in your voice.

[anjaq]

Oh thanks. I don't worry much that it would sound male, but I used to be worried a lot about sounding trans. Nice to hear that this seems not the case now.

[anjaq]

This is how it looks now at the ENT with the endoscope.
Its about 7-8 months post op

http://imgur.com/a/VZ5ES

It seems to have healed nicely, the suture is barely visible, but there is some asymmetry in the action of the vocal folds and some gap at the "top"=back , which my ENT thinks is not going to go away because it was there before the surgery and it is like this in most women.

My pitch range apparently now is about 107Hz-735Hz, so I lost a bit more at the top, I can sing up to 100 dB and shout at 105 dB, but shouting really sounds rough, so I think this needs more time. They measured some slightly increased breathiness (DSI was too low this time) and increased jitter since I stopped the clonazepam.

Reading the standard text and doing various sounds, my pitch was at 191 Hz fore reading and 182 Hz for the other sounds. The woman who did the examination said that her voice is a bit lower than that (mine is at f# or g and she says she is at f or f#). So I am definitely in the female pitch range there

I also finally feel that I can just talk without thinking - if I don't control my voice at all, it still is good, although it may be slightly lower in pitch and have some more heaviness to it - but thats all ok. The tendency I had in the beginning to lower my voice closer to the old pitch - and thus way below my optimal pitch now - is mostly gone. Thus I do use higher pitches more naturally, which is good, because those are the ones where my voice works better now.

I guess I will do some more voice therapy sessions, probably I am not going to try and get more clonazepam, even if Dr Kim recommended it, but the doctors seem to be all not in favour of this. Probably not much will change about my voice at this point except maybe some more power returning back, hopefully the breathiness and jitter will go away again and I may try singing lessons to see what I can do about the upper range.