Hey ladies! So I've been reading up on some of these threads here and I want some input!
I'm curious as to how Carmen carrera got her voice the way she did? Do you think it's more likely that she had vfs or just voice therapy?

Here's what her voice was like before:

And now:

Most trans women who have a passable voice have trained it. Few have done surgery but that number is steadily increasing.

As for which is "better:"

Surgery pros:
Virtually no risk with advanced procedures like Yeson or Dr Haben's procedure
Voice is effortless
Voice most times passes very well

Surgery cons:
Costs money
With some procedures voice can be permanently damaged
Period of silence at least 7 days up to 2 months for best healing
One may have to travel to be operated on
Not usually reversible

Training pros:
Cheap/free or at least costs less than surgery
Non invasive, no surgical risks from anesthesia or surgery in general
No silence period
Completely reversible

Training cons:
May require one to be conscious of their voice to not slip back
May require effort
In many cases does not give as dramatic results or high pitch increase as surgery
May take several months to a year
Voice can deteriorate with age

If you want a passable voice you need to train it. Even surgery won't magically give you a female voice. So she will have definitely done voice training. There really is no way to tell though if she has had surgery or not, that I know of at least. Other than whether not not she can still speak in a low pitch which she probably isn't going to do


PS
Voice surgery really doesn't mean your voice will pass Kate and some of the procedures also deteriorate with age from what I have heard. This is mostly the older ones though. Also my voice therapist informed me it is not meant to be effortful to speak and you know what, using the stuff he has taught me, my current voice is extremely easy.

It's hard to tell for shure. She definitely had training, and I think by the time of the second video she just had that much more training (2 years more? idk).

Surgery just by itself isn't a big change by any means. If one has a male sounding voice before, she will have a little less male sounding voice after. Training is still the essential part of voice development. Resonance is far more important than pitch.
Surgery makes the real difference to those who have big problems with keeping the voice at reasonable pitch because of vocal straining, and in this cases it is mostly not about lack of practice or vocal training, as most of them did at least one or two or more years of training before making the decision for surgery.

Even with voice surgery you still have to train your voice a little. Well maybe not train but learn how to use it like you would a flute

Absolutely you have to train your voice but it is not the same as training from a male voice. Mostly with VFS you are training to get rid of the resonance and add prosody.

Well no, if you have a male sounding voice before VFS, you will still have a male sounding voice after VFS, the only thing that will be different is a little higher pitch. And even that isn't necessary guaranteed to happen to everybody, if you read into patient experiences past the most successful results. That little raised pitch might be enough to those individuals who already had a trained voice, but had a problem with keeping it constantly high enough without straining the voice. If you don't have a trained voice before going into VFS, don't expect too much because you might be very disappointed. It takes just as much work and development to train it properly as it takes to train the voice without surgey. Of course if you're lucky and get a good result (in terms of pitch) it will only help.

Quote from: mmmmm on March 08, 2015, 03:09:20 PM
Well no, if you have a male sounding voice before VFS, you will still have a male sounding voice after VFS, the only thing that will be different is a little higher pitch. And even that isn't necessary guaranteed to happen to everybody, if you read into patient experiences past the most successful results. That little raised pitch might be enough to those individuals who already had a trained voice, but had a problem with keeping it constantly high enough without straining the voice. If you don't have a trained voice before going into VFS, don't expect too much because you might be very disappointed. It takes just as much work and development to train it properly as it takes to train the voice without surgey. Of course if you're lucky and get a good result (in terms of pitch) it will only help.

Unless you're basing this on personal experience or professional experience (I.e if you are a doctor or speech pathologist) I will say that what you're saying is not accurate at all.

In any case I will find out for myself in a few months but from what I've seen, training before surgery can have actually negative effects. If you look at Jenny and Anja's experiences they have had things like vocal fold asymmetry and incomplete closing of the folds due to prolonged use of a higher than natural voice. That's not to say it happens to everyone but it happens.

I'm still going to have training but there is no question that the surgery gives a better result for many people beyond what training can do. It also has the benefit of not requiring one to consciously use their trained voice which is the main reason I am going to have the surgery. "Slipping back" is an extreme concern for me as I have to often react quickly and unexpectedly to various situations.

But yes I will have training but I am being careful before the surgery and immediately after. I have a speech pathologist lined up, she is expensive but she is the best around here from what I've told.

And I've heard everyone giving me every discouragement to not have surgery but in reality it's my voice and I feel it's best for me if I do.

my voice just sounds low for a woman and high for a man so it's kind of just androgynous. but with voice training alone do you constantly have to be mindful of your voice or does it become effortless? and what about when you scream or yell does your voice go back to sounding deep or do you still keep the trained voice?

Quote from: ImagineKate on March 08, 2015, 03:34:12 PM
Unless you're basing this on personal experience or professional experience (I.e if you are a doctor or speech pathologist) I will say that what you're saying is not accurate at all.

In any case I will find out for myself in a few months but from what I've seen, training before surgery can have actually negative effects. If you look at Jenny and Anja's experiences they have had things like vocal fold asymmetry and incomplete closing of the folds due to prolonged use of a higher than natural voice. That's not to say it happens to everyone but it happens.

I'm still going to have training but there is no question that the surgery gives a better result for many people beyond what training can do. It also has the benefit of not requiring one to consciously use their trained voice which is the main reason I am going to have the surgery. "Slipping back" is an extreme concern for me as I have to often react quickly and unexpectedly to various situations.

But yes I will have training but I am being careful before the surgery and immediately after. I have a speech pathologist lined up, she is expensive but she is the best around here from what I've told.

And I've heard everyone giving me every discouragement to not have surgery but in reality it's my voice and I feel it's best for me if I do.

Well I'm not a doctor, and I'm not a speech pathologist, but I do have quite some years of classical singing training, so I know a thing or two about the voice, vocal cords, vocal training, etc...

"due to prolonged use of a higher than natural voice" ... here you see: natural and only natural voice is where you can speak from, without any short or long term damage. Staying withing the range of what is a comfortable speaking range of your voice, is as far as your vocal cords can safely go while speaking. With singing it is very different story, one can go safely much much higher than where a natural speaking range is. But the point is not about singing here.
Weather you do train your voice before or after the surgery doesn't matter if you do it correct and safely. Actually it will be probably harder to do it correct and safely after surgery, and I think you definitely made a right decision to work with speech pathologist after surgery. After paying so much for surgery, it would be a shame if you don't reach the full potential of your new voice. Expensive or not, it's a smart thing to do.

Since I was tagged here - I want to reply on that.

The reason my voice was damaged ddue to the long term use was mostly becaus eI did it in a bad way. I did DIY voice training, part of it with instructions online, some by myself and not all of it was good. What really helps a lot - no matter if pre op or post op is the way to sound female. This has a lot to do with resonance, voice melody and other parameters that are independent of surgery. What got me into the mess was that my original pitch was very low, about 110 Hz. So with a soft and relaxed natural increase that also comes with the changed resonance to a degree, I was up in the 140 Hz range, which still is a male range. So I tried to push it further and this is what caused the problems. In could not keep a 180 Hz voice without straining it and so I eventually lost it. I did speech therapy then to get it all relaxed again and went back to the 140 Hz. I think it is beyond my natural range to speak constantly at >170 Hz, so that is why I eventually chose surgery. However, my voice was rather female sounding even at the low pitch I had before the surgery. 140Hz was still ok, it was perceived by many as a very very low female voice, except on the phone where I was usually misgendered when I did not push it up in pitch for that occasion. Proper voice therapy or training should allow you to use all kinds of pitches with low effort and this works actually amazingly well. I could do pitch glides rather easily in the end. Yet still, if I relaxed or did not watch it, I was down at the low end again.

Regarding the OP and the two videos. My guess is she had quite a successfu voice training in the first video already - she sounds low pitched but mostly female in that (especially given the noisy environment, which requires using more power in the voice, which makes it harder to control). The second video of course is awesome but I think it is mostly due to training. My take is, if you have a rather high male or androgynous voice before (e.g. 150 or 160 Hz which still is lower than the normal female range), the pitch increase that comes with resonance change (which is about 30-40 Hz) is enough to put you into a female normal range, maybe a bit at the lower side, but its safe. This is the case in a lot of people and they get by very well with voice training alone. People starting lower in pitch may struggle more to get this working withoutt doing damage. In the worst case if you are starting at 90 Hz and want to be in the 180 Hz plus reange, you constantly have to use your voice like a singer hitting higher notes. This needs a lot of care and basically you have to act like a pro singer all the time doing warmups, voice rests, voice strenghtening etc... Personally I think in that case a surgery (hopefully) makes that easier.

That said - what was written here is very true - you always always need voice training or therapy. With or without surgery. And if it is done properly, it will NOT make surgery harder, but it may be one has to unlearn a thing or two after a surgery. Dr Kim said I will have to use my natural relaxed pitch and not my trained higher pitch because if I do, I end up being squeaky at 260 Hz - LOL, which would be silly for a big woman like me. But I think I will manage to relax and speak naturally then. Its part of what I wanted after all..

Greetings