Voice change is the best ever.

[kathyk]

Take a look at this video and hear how her voice is completely changed.  I've been seriously trying to figure out how to pay for a trip to Korea and have this done.  Too many other obligations right now, but it's going to happen in the future.  I just posted this in a reply to Ginny's post from the 23rd, but figured I'd also ask if any of you have researched this, and if so know the cost. 

Thanks

[MaddieShirey]

That is really insane. Perhaps I will write a letter to Santa this year after all

[RavenMoon]

Is that our own abbyt89?  Looks like her.  She sounds great!

I have two trans friends that had voice surgery. They both sound really good. One of them said her voiced lowered a little since it was done, and she doesn't like it now, but I think she sounds fine. I believe they both had it done in the states.

I'd like to do this, I think, but I'm concerned bout not being able to sing afterwards.

[evecrook]

sounds great

[sarahb]

You should go to the Voice Therapy and Surgery forum. There are many posts related to the Yeson Voice Center. Jenny, Abby, myself, and a few others have been having lively conversations about this procedure and our recovery

I am just over 2 weeks post-op myself after having this same procedure and am tracking my progress in this thread.

[MaddieShirey]

Yeah, not being able to sing would suck. :/ I hadn't considered that. Is that really a concern?

[MaddieShirey]

Oh! Excellent! Thanks for that

[kathyk]

You should go to the Voice Therapy and Surgery forum. There are many posts related to the Yeson Voice Center. Jenny, Abby, myself, and a few others have been having lively conversations about this procedure and our recovery

I am just over 2 weeks post-op myself after having this same procedure and am tracking my progress in this thread.

I've got your thread bookmarked!   Thanks hun.  Sooo hyped.  I'm gonna do this ... no looking back.

[RavenMoon]

Yeah, not being able to sing would suck. :/ I hadn't considered that. Is that really a concern?

Yes. But here's what I have found from talking to people; one of my trans friends who had vocal surgery is a musician and singer. She has a great speaking voice, and she sounds good singing too. She's not the best singer in the world, but she wasn't before the surgery. She told me it took her about two years to get her singing back to where she wanted it! If you figure they say it takes a year to totally heal, that makes sense. You will have to learn to sing again. But part of that is having a good ear, and then relearning how to control your voice.

Here's a demo of hers. I like the sound of her voice.

https://soundcloud.com/deviever/youre-not-even-here?in=deviever/sets/breakup-ep-demos

Member Jennygirl had vocal surgery, and she was a singer beforehand. So I asked her about it, and she told me Yeson says you can start singing again after 4-6 months, and she was at about 4.5 after her surgery, and that she was just starting to be able to holding notes. So that's not too bad. That was the beginning of October, and I haven't talked to her since.

I have the Andrea James vocal training course. I have not really done much with it yet, but I can do an OK female speaking voice, and recently tried singing in one. It came out pretty good for a first try. I think with practice I can do it. The singing seems easier to me than the talking part! So once I actually start practicing my voice, I'll see how it goes. I have a pretty high singing range, so I can hit high notes, but don't exactly like the tone of it, as far as it being a female singing voice. And I'll be losing my lower range. So if any a while I'm not making much progress with the singing part, I will look into the surgery.

There's also Dr. C. Michael Haben in Rochester, NY that does a similar surgery using lasers.

http://professionalvoice.org/feminization.aspx

I haven't read of anyone having gone to him.

[MaddieShirey]

Oooo lasers! That's even better! Yay for not having to go to South Korea! I'm sure it's a nice place... But that's a LONG way from home.

I'm pretty bassy myself. I'm not sure those voice training courses will work for me as well, but I suppose they would be better to try first.

[RavenMoon]

I've always had a somewhat high voice for a male. And kind of thin sounding. I'm realizing now that I over compensated and tried to make it sound deeper over the years (while I liked being mistaken for a girl when I was younger, I used to get picked in school). So now I'm retraining it by speaking in the upper part of my throat, which is what these training courses have you do. Still not sure how much I can do without surgery, but I'm going to try.

[Jennygirl]

Hi laides

My singing voice is continuing to improve. I'm not sure if I'll ever have the full upper range extension of a cis female vocalist, but the shorter vocal cords do seem to have a different more feminine vocal quality while singing. I'm pretty excited to start really singing again. Just last night in was belting some stuff to the radio and it was night and day from the beginning of October... A good sign of better things to come.

It is already obvious to me that there will still be a bit of a learning curve to sound truly feminine while signing, but I am up for the challenge!

[sam79]

Hoping that someone might be able to explain, I'm kinda confused...

I thought that with practice, all mtf women have the ability to sound female without surgery? And that over time, this would become easy and natural to use that voice? Is that not the case for everyone? Or is this a kind of improvement only type surgery?  Sorry, somehow I came to think that VFS wasn't very effective...

[xchristine]

I am not sure if I am going to do voice surgery.
If I do I would want Dr haben to do my work
And it is VERY interesting that no one else does the
Korean technique. Except glattoplastik in Germany is the same

So no yeson does not have new late breaking technology
It was invented long before in Germany.

Now as it stands I don't know the facts of longevity and
Neither does anyone else. But a lot of voice surgeons won't do
The Korea style because they said to me is it "fades" over time .

And lets not delude ourselves that only Koreans cos of karate
Or something mystical are the only ones capable of this
Type of surgery.

It can be done in many other places. And I have heard some awfull
Results from yeson. And the voice doctor and Mayer.
But the really good ones also happen to be voice trained
Before they went under the knife..or laser in my case maybe

[Jennygirl]

Hoping that someone might be able to explain, I'm kinda confused...

I thought that with practice, all mtf women have the ability to sound female without surgery? And that over time, this would become easy and natural to use that voice? Is that not the case for everyone? Or is this a kind of improvement only type surgery?  Sorry, somehow I came to think that VFS wasn't very effective...

It's true don't worry, practice alone is the ideal way! I consider VFS to either just be an upgrade or unlock for an already practiced voice.

Any mtf person can have a female sounding voice with enough drive towards the goal. But probably the hardest part, in my opinion, is integrating it into actual use.

Personally I have always had really good practice ability but bad stage fright, so I think that's why I find myself relating so much to this thread. It can be excruciatingly hard to start using a different voice.

[xchristine]

Awww Jenny a girl as pretty as you should never
Ever be shy <3

I know from expeience hehe

[sam79]

Personally I have always had really good practice ability but bad stage fright, so I think that's why I find myself relating so much to this thread. It can be excruciatingly hard to start using a different voice.

Oh yes, it was at first!

To overcome that with a bit of a sink or swim attitude, I recently did some customer service work using my female. I swum .

[RavenMoon]

Hi laides

My singing voice is continuing to improve. I'm not sure if I'll ever have the full upper range extension of a cis female vocalist, but the shorter vocal cords do seem to have a different more feminine vocal quality while singing. I'm pretty excited to start really singing again. Just last night in was belting some stuff to the radio and it was night and day from the beginning of October... A good sign of better things to come.

It is already obvious to me that there will still be a bit of a learning curve to sound truly feminine while signing, but I am up for the challenge!

Yay! Happy to hear about your progress.

[RavenMoon]

But probably the hardest part, in my opinion, is integrating it into actual use.

I would imagine that something so natural as laughing is tricky!  I mean, you have to learn to laugh in a different voice, so it's almost like acting.

Personally I have always had really good practice ability but bad stage fright, so I think that's why I find myself relating so much to this thread. It can be excruciatingly hard to start using a different voice.

I tried to use the voice I practiced on Halloween, and even in that context I couldn't get myself to do it!