Yeah - for me its 17 years and still often wondering if people will think of me as trans ...
Quote from: bibilinda on September 03, 2015, 08:26:15 PM
So if I ever get VFS, I will make sure I will check if these limits NATURALLY expand, without the use of vocal training. Just by the surgery itself....... For me to expect a surgery to be successful in feminizing my handicapped voice, B4 and B5 would be my minimum expectations if they were to shorten my vocal cords and I would also expect to have a usable whistle register like any woman does, for shrieking emotionally like a scared girl. Any woman no matter if she's even a contralto, can easily shriek notes in the 6th octave when they get really upset, excited or scared.
To be honest, I think your expectations for VFS are too high. It is a surgery that can help a lot with some things, but it cannot give someone a totall 100% naturally female voice. The only surgery that may stand a chance at that is that of Dr Thomas and others who do the same thing - total larynx reconstruction. Shortening the voval folds, reducing the size of the larynx, putting the larynx higher up to reduce the length of the resonance chamber. If that one works without giving you a broken or damaged voice because of all the scarring and possible asymmetries , it might really be closest to a naturally female voice, although even that of course cannot change speaking habits and also not the physics of the resonance chambers in the head.
If your expectations are that high, I would really be very reluctant to suggest voice surgery...
Quote from: iKate on September 04, 2015, 07:22:59 AM
Beats me. I have 70-80Hz pitch increase now, but actually it's more like 100Hz because I was at 134Hz before I went full time.
So I'm thinking factors other than surgery are at play. I had my spiro dose increased and I am taking a different E that feels noticeably different. (Same estradiol just different pill mfg, different coating which affects absorption). They say hormones have no effect on voice but I'm begging to differ.
I also have better health habits than before like drinking more water and staying active.
But I think it's because as you've said before this is more like voice supporting surgery and it is much easier to access higher pitches so we just do. Even if you train a stock male voice it can go up to female pitch and get stuck there by default. I suspect the surgery is making this easier and enabling us to go higher.
I am not sure. I also optimized hormones, lost a lot of weight recently, eating a lot of freshly cooked veggies instead of premade dinners and so on - but it did not have an effect on my voice, I believe. Higher pitches are however easier to access, thats true - in fact lower pitches are hard on my voice and leading to hoarseness after a while - yet still I usually am speaking at the lower pitches (160-180 Hz) most of the time, since I seem to get more resonance and because it appears to be more relaxed. With higher pitches I seem to tense up a lot of muscles that distort the voice, so in voice training, the higher pitches are more clean and cost less effort, but when actually speaking, they cause more tension and breathiness. And I can't speak in the head voice all the time - that would be odd.
Quote from: kwala on September 03, 2015, 03:08:40 PM
Firstly, it's important to note that a voice break for most people doesn't have one definite pitch. Usually there is a range of several notes where the voice begins to "think" about changing gears. This can be as small as 2-3 semitones or as large as a perfect fifth. [...] In general, the more time one spends singing or speaking in this range, the stronger the muscles become and the easier it is to go higher without cracking.
Hmm - for me it seems to be a rather small area - I get the urge to "flip" at around the A3 or B3, C4 is the most likely point it happens, C#4 is possible with a lot of self control, D4 is always head voice. I tried to change this with the voice exercises of Yeson by working them around that area more than elsewhere, but it stays constant. Most others seem to have the break starting at E4 or F4 or even G4 and may even push it higher. I wonder whats so different - it cannot just be training...
QuoteIn my case I'm not playing the Hz wars, as I've heard some voices with high Hz that sounds absolutely clockable and false sounding. I'm happy with a pitch variation of 190-260Hz or so which gives me plenty of headroom for prosody.
Yeah that sounds good. I am probably more at 150-220 Hz now because getting closer to the break at 260 Hz (C4) causes the voice to have the tendency to flip into head voice in odd ways...
