Vocal Surgery

[Riven]

Wow, this blew up while I was away. Thanks for the responses! Bibilinda, you are so pretty, I wish I can look half as good as you when I start hormones.  I accept that the best results come from therapy and from the sounds of it, that's the baseline for all passing voices. As an open question: How well have the results been for people with very deep, monotone voices? I'm very unsatisfied with my voice and will definitely look to therapy to correct it but vocal surgery is not something I'm willing to rule out. I'd rather never speak again than have this voice forever.

[Dena]

I am used to working with United State and Chinese voices and you had an accent that my ear wasn't use to hearing. It wasn't a matter of understanding but picking up on the details that I would normally hear on the first pass with an accent I knew. The voice is for the most part in the acceptable range for a female voice but inflection and breath are two things that a GG does naturally. If we wish to emulate those voices, we have to include that in our voice. That won't be easy for me to do either because I have been limiting my vocal range a bit to get a little more pitch into my voice. I will also need to expand the inflection in my voice to take full advantage of the surgery. Will I be able to do it, I am not sure because was born with limited hearing range and as the result I seen speech therapy early in my schooling. I may end up sounding female with messed up pronunciation but I am putting my money on the line that i can make it work.

I am 6'2" which is taller than most and Haben is going for 190Hz for my voice as he said a woman my size would have a voice in that range. I somewhat wonder about that because my sister who isn't much smaller than me uses a high squeaky voice. In any case the limits of the surgery limit how much pitch is possible and I will be near the limit.

Another thread had a person hitting 250z and she was complaining her voice still sounded male. It wasn't the pitch or resonance that were the problem. It was the fact her voice was monotone with no interest. If we could get the inflection right, we would sound female at a far lower pitch. Think of the effeminate gay voice. It sound female even though the pitch might be in the male voice range. I gave you the best feed back on the voice you gave me and if it's not your best voice, I am sorry but that's the best I can do with what you provided me.

I don't understand why you have an everyday voice and a voice you only seem to use in therapy. In my view the only way to lock a voice in is to use it as much as possible. When I found the Falsetto, I started using it within a few hours of discovery. I had it locked in within a few weeks of finding it and now have to make an effort to drop out of it.

[Dena]

Wow, this blew up while I was away. Thanks for the responses! Bibilinda, you are so pretty, I wish I can look half as good as you when I start hormones.  I accept that the best results come from therapy and from the sounds of it, that's the baseline for all passing voices. As an open question: How well have the results been for people with very deep, monotone voices? I'm very unsatisfied with my voice and will definitely look to therapy to correct it but vocal surgery is not something I'm willing to rule out. I'd rather never speak again than have this voice forever.

My voice will hit 80hz which is a very low male voice. That pulled the top end down so I can't hit the female range unless I use a whistler voice which for me is 250 hz to 490 hz. This is way to high and my Falsetto is to low. Therapy was still needed for me to understand what is needed but it isn't the full solution for me. Like me, start with therapy and if it can't do the job, consider surgery. Each voice is different and some people can sing over a 4 octave rage which is very impressive. You won't know what your voice will do until you get it mapped out and therapy is one place to do it.
After a few sessions in therapy you should start to know what is possible.

[Dena]

Much improved as I think you were paying more attention to your voice than in the first recording. I think even the first voice sounded a bit better than the last recording. The accent doesn't bother me and I know I have a pretty sad one from my midwest up bringing. What stops me with your accent is I can't place where you are from. It's not important I know but it's habit figuring out the history of a person from their voice.

I don't want the gay voice either because it sound feminine but it's not. The point was that pitch is only about 50% of the gender content and the other 50% is how we use the voice. I do understand the part about finding the sweet spot for your voice. I can generate higher pitches but the voice goes flat when I use them. About 160-170 hz in my falsetto voice works well for delivery but it's far to low to sound feminine.

My whistler voice tops out at 490hz which is pretty low compared to you. I find little difference between the falsetto and the whistler voice as far as effort to use. I ended up finding the whistler first and then had to back off to find the falsetto.
As low as the whistler voice is, it has some real punch to it and it comes out with little effort. The problem with it is I see little use for it other than singing which I would like to try again. 

I may have a little problem with your whistler because of my hearing. I was born with massive hearing loss and as the results I can't here the top three or four keys on a piano. My hearing is limited with more of the upper keys. In the voice range I can hear fine but I am not sure I was hearing your whistler correctly because of the pitch you were generating.

As far as size goes, the surgery can only move your voice so much. With my mouth voice at around 130hz and the surgery moving the voice about 75hz, the best I could expect would be around 205hz which I will be happy with. I also like the warmth of the lower voice and I only hope I can pull it off effectively. 

I am sorry if I pushed your buttons because I didn't intend to. I have no desire to make a single enemy on this site because I am here to help and not hurt.

[Sydney_NYC]

....

I am 6'2" which is taller than most and Haben is going for 190Hz for my voice as he said a woman my size would have a voice in that range. I somewhat wonder about that because my sister who isn't much smaller than me uses a high squeaky voice. In any case the limits of the surgery limit how much pitch is possible and I will be near the limit.

Another thread had a person hitting 250z and she was complaining her voice still sounded male. It wasn't the pitch or resonance that were the problem. It was the fact her voice was monotone with no interest. If we could get the inflection right, we would sound female at a far lower pitch. Think of the effeminate gay voice. It sound female even though the pitch might be in the male voice range. I gave you the best feed back on the voice you gave me and if it's not your best voice, I am sorry but that's the best I can do with what you provided me.

I don't understand why you have an everyday voice and a voice you only seem to use in therapy. In my view the only way to lock a voice in is to use it as much as possible. When I found the Falsetto, I started using it within a few hours of discovery. I had it locked in within a few weeks of finding it and now have to make an effort to drop out of it.

I though this would be the case. I'm 6'7" and I average between 190-215Hz and have no issues. A friend of mine said for a woman of my height, any higher would not sound right and sound artificial, which makes sense. Even at 180Hz which is the bottom of female range, you shouldn't have any problems in person if your tall, but on the phone it could go either way.

[Dena]

I though this would be the case. I'm 6'7" and I average between 190-215Hz and have no issues. A friend of mine said for a woman of my height, any higher would not sound right and sound artificial, which makes sense. Even at 180Hz which is the bottom of female range, you shouldn't have any problems in person if your tall, but on the phone it could go either way.

That is the part of the issue. My current voice is so low it guarantees a Sir on the phone and it was 5 calls in a row to Sears product support with Sirs on each one that drove me to this web site for voice surgery information. Yes, I know training is going to be even more important for me because I will be working at the bottom of the female range. I don't really want a high pitched voice, just one without the Sirs. On the other hand, I do have a back up plan. My mouth and falsetto range overlap a good deal but there is a 30z different between them. I could slip into the falsetto just long enough to trick their ear.

[Sydney_NYC]

That is the part of the issue. My current voice is so low it guarantees a Sir on the phone and it was 5 calls in a row to Sears product support with Sirs on each one that drove me to this web site for voice surgery information. Yes, I know training is going to be even more important for me because I will be working at the bottom of the female range. I don't really want a high pitched voice, just one without the Sirs. On the other hand, I do have a back up plan. My mouth and falsetto range overlap a good deal but there is a 30z different between them. I could slip into the falsetto just long enough to trick their ear.

I had this same problem on the phone when I was in the 180Hz range. It still happens on occasion (10-20% of the time), if I'm tired or have crappy cell reception. (Crappy connections makes it sound more male on the phone.) I found that if I slow down when talking use more variations in pitch, that it goes a longer way in getting gendered female on the phone. I've found that how the first sentence comes out of your mouth determines the perceived gender to the other person on the phone.

[Dena]

I had this same problem on the phone when I was in the 180Hz range. It still happens on occasion (10-20% of the time), if I'm tired or have crappy cell reception. (Crappy connections makes it sound more male on the phone.) I found that if I slow down when talking use more variations in pitch, that it goes a longer way in getting gendered female on the phone. I've found that how the first sentence comes out of your mouth determines the perceived gender to the other person on the phone.

Information I found somewhere else said to nail the first sentence. As for cell phone reception, where I go my cell phone works good all the time but the other guys phone tends be the one with the problem. Most of the time I connect with land lines so cell reception isn't much of an issue.

Funny story I just though of. The reason I was calling Sears was because of new refrigerator I bough and the price was about half off. Add the cost of a new voice in and that's the most expensive refrigerator I ever bought.

[Asche]

Hope this isn't a derail, but...

To what extent do the frequencies you all are talking about correspond to the musical notes one can sing?  For instance, I see mention of "falsetto" voice at 160 Hz (around E below middle C.)  My falsetto singing voice goes from about A below middle C (220 Hz) up to about C above middle C (520 Hz); I can't do falsetto below about A-flat.

I've also never heard of a "whistler" voice -- is this anything like "head voice"?  (I'm told "head voice" is different from falsetto, but I have no idea how.)

[Dena]

Hope this isn't a derail, but...

To what extent do the frequencies you all are talking about correspond to the musical notes one can sing?  For instance, I see mention of "falsetto" voice at 160 Hz (around E below middle C.)  My falsetto singing voice goes from about A below middle C (220 Hz) up to about C above middle C (520 Hz); I can't do falsetto below about A-flat.

I've also never heard of a "whistler" voice -- is this anything like "head voice"?  (I'm told "head voice" is different from falsetto, but I have no idea how.)

My voice is one of the worst to get stuck with because all my ranges are so low. My ranges break down as followed
Lowest usable note 80Hz, male speaking voice was above that.
Mouth voice 130-196Hz
Falsetto voice 155-237Hz
Whistler voice 250-490Hz

The head voice/mouth voice is where you tighten the muscles above the larynx. To get to the Falsetto, you use light air pressure and light tension on the vocal cords.
Now to access the whistler voice, you use a Falsetto with just a little more tension in your vocal cords and you will jump to the higher range. The voice is very uncontrollable and not useful for speech however if you are into opera and hear a singer cranking out some really high notes, that is most likely the Whistler range,
When I tried accessing the falsetto, I jumped to the Whistler instead. I then had to backtrack to reach the falsetto.

Now if I hadn't given up on the idea of singing when I was young, I might have been able to sing in the Bass range but I think it would have been disgusting to sing so low.

You have more of a singing voice and the gods of T were kind to you. As you can see, 190hz for me is in the upper end of the falsetto voice where it's hard to control for voice usage, it's better to work the low end of a range were the sound can be produced with less tension on the vocal cords.

And now you understand why they developed voice feminization surgery. Just for cases like me.

[Asche]

You have more of a singing voice and the gods of T were kind to you.

Well, I do sing tenor (in a chorus, not solo.)  And tenor parts sometimes go up to C above middle C. (C5?)

FWIW, I can sing most alto parts.  But I don't sound like an alto.  (Maybe I could if I actually took voice lessons?)

[bibilinda]

Note: Sorry I deleted my previous post, but I showed another link to my voice and I am too self-conscious about it, because other than my loving BF I have never ever gotten a single compliment about it on here, it seems that apparently everyone is doing better than me in the voice department, and I also hate being told that I have an accent when I speak English because I have accent dysphoria in addition to the gender one.

Riven: Thanks for your compliment, I really appreciate it! I don't think I am pretty. But there's a "secret" to looking more feminine and attractive/likable: a genuine smile! When I don't smile, I have what they call a "resting bitch face". Before meeting my BF, I had to practice my smile in front of mirrors, now it comes naturally every time I see him!

BTW I've been on HRT six years now, had orchi and t-shave five years ago in October, and I had my chin reduced and other facial work done even years before starting HRT, including laser hair removal, but never a real FFS because at that time I didn't even know I was a transgender-transsexual person, and I had no idea that FFS even existed! What I mean is that, at least for me, it has been a very tough road to get where I am now, and I still totally dislike both my face and body, and feel completely inadequate when compared to ANY cis woman, starting with my own sisters! So I wish you luck with your own transition. To me, orchi was the real game-changer. When the estrogen started to act 100% unopposed, is when I started to get the bigger changes, but sadly, bone structure and facial hair stay the same in most cases and I wasn't the exception.

BTW if you have any concerns about starting your HRT and transition and think my experience may be of help, don't hesitate to contact me!

Wow, this blew up while I was away. Thanks for the responses! Bibilinda, you are so pretty, I wish I can look half as good as you when I start hormones.  I accept that the best results come from therapy and from the sounds of it, that's the baseline for all passing voices. As an open question: How well have the results been for people with very deep, monotone voices? I'm very unsatisfied with my voice and will definitely look to therapy to correct it but vocal surgery is not something I'm willing to rule out. I'd rather never speak again than have this voice forever.

[Riven]

This thread seriously got away from me. What do all of these frequencies and ranges actually mean? Honestly, as long as I'm passing physically and voice, I seriously doubt these things will mean anything to me. Are these things I'll learn during voice therapy?

[Dena]

This thread seriously got away from me. What do all of these frequencies and ranges actually mean? Honestly, as long as I'm passing physically and voice, I seriously doubt these things will mean anything to me. Are these things I'll learn during voice therapy?

Therapy can cover it but the following chart will give you a feel for what we are talking about. Pitch is only halve the voice and the rest is how you use. My pitch is so low, it just can't be used to produce a phone passable voice.
http://www.nyspeechandvoicelab.net/transgender/voice-feminization/