Yeson voice surgery booked

[AmyBerlin]

Hi all,

as an aside to the discussion on Yeson and the singing voice, I read that Sinae, one of the girls in the transgender K-pop band "Lady", had VFS with Yeson in Sept. 2006. From the few videos I could dig up of that short-lived group, her singing voice sounds absolutely normal and healthy, notwithstanding the abysmal quality of the tunes they perform. Nothing definite can be said of her range, as the tunes hardly call for any. But what can be said is that the critical midrange for transwomen, from e' to a', is good, clear, and strong.

Amy

[Jennygirl]

Interesting. Yeah I did a search and found in a writing that she had a starting pitch of 170hz. I would imagine that was her practiced feminine pitch.

[sarahb]

Hmm, interesting, that's cool to hear the singing voice of someone who had the surgery. You're right, it sounds completely natural to me too. Just another example of the amazing work Dr. Kim does.

By the way, here's a short video to show what my voice sounds like speaking naturally, as opposed to the rainbow passage. I also did another recording of the rainbow passage with a better mic so there's not so much background noise and hissing.

Oh, and I also threw in my low manly voice at the end of the video

Rainbow Passage:
https://soundcloud.com/theartoflogic/rainbow-passage-post-op-2013-12-13/s-mfHai?in=theartoflogic/sets/yeson/s-ey1Lo 🔗


🔗

[AmyBerlin]

Dear Jenny, dear Sarah,

[...] she had a starting pitch of 170hz. I would imagine that was her practiced feminine pitch.

I believe so. 170 Hz is between an e and an f. That's a whole 5th above male average, thus it's very unlikely to be her original pitch.

Hmm, interesting, that's cool to hear the singing voice of someone who had the surgery. You're right, it sounds completely natural to me too. Just another example of the amazing work Dr. Kim does.

Yes indeed. You've all heard about Stanley Milgram's Six Degrees of Separation, aka Small World Phenomenon. In the even smaller trans world, it must be down to three. As quite a few ladies from Korea have posted here and there in Jenny's thread, maybe one of them can put us in contact with Sinae or another singer patient of Dr. Kim's, so we can maybe find out more about the long-term effect of VFS on the singing voice.

By the way, here's a short video to show what my voice sounds like speaking naturally, as opposed to the rainbow passage. I also did another recording of the rainbow passage with a better mic so there's not so much background noise and hissing.

Excellent, congratulations! You sound great and 120% feminine! The voice still sticks to quite a narrow pitch range, but that should resolve with time and practice. You must be ecstatic with joy!

Oh, and I also threw in my low manly voice at the end of the video

Not masculine at all, but just a woman trying to reach for a low note. Incredible!

Love,

Amy

[barbie]

Not masculine at all, but just a woman trying to reach for a low note. Incredible!

Love,

Amy

Me, too.

Barbie~~

[barbie]

As quite a few ladies from Korea have posted here and there in Jenny's thread, maybe one of them can put us in contact with Sinae or another singer patient of Dr. Kim's, so we can maybe find out more about the long-term effect of VFS on the singing voice.

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lady_(group) 🔗

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lady_(group) 🔗

Sinae is said to now work as a plain make-up artist after the debacle of the vocal group Lady in 2005.

Although the Wikipedia article cites several factors of the failure, their lack of singing skill was the most critical. They could not bring money to the entertainment companies.

Thus, no way to listen her voice again.

Barbie~~

[AmyBerlin]

Dear Barbie,

Thus, no way to listen her voice again.

It needn't necessarily be her. Southeast Asia is not exactly a world region where transsexualism is unheard of. Plus, compared to the average population, quite a slice of the transgender population is working in arts and entertainment. The thought that not a single one of these women would have utilized the services of a quality ENT surgeon 'round the corner specializing in just what she needs is patently absurd. Between 2004 and 2011, Dr. Kim has performed 173 VFSs. If 5% of that sample use their voice professionally, that's 8-9 people.

The real kashe is: How do you get in contact with one of them to get a realistic perspective on how the singing voice will behave post-surgery if you don't speak the language and thus can't even fully leverage Internet searches?

Amy

[anjaq]

Sarah - I LMAOd when I read you will do a "manly voice" and then you tried. You do a much worse "guy imitation" than some of my female friends 😉 - I guess that part of the voice really is now totally gone. No more boy imitations - but I doubt you would be sorry about that 😉 - really, it sounds great. Still a bit weak, still a bit restricted or limited and 300-something as the upper limit is not great yet, but hey - its 1 short month post op. Just another month will make a huge difference already, I am sure. As I get it, you should be able to get the upper range and the strength back within a few weeks to months and then all will be great 🙂 - Wow that video really made an impresison on me - the rainbow passage - it is nice but so artificial, but to get a video and just conversational talk, thats much more impressing me.

About the professional singer - is there something where she writes about having VFS at Yesons? And there certainly must be recordings of her singing as well, right?

[barbie]

The real kashe is: How do you get in contact with one of them to get a realistic perspective on how the singing voice will behave post-surgery if you don't speak the language and thus can't even fully leverage Internet searches?

Amy

About the professional singer - is there something where she writes about having VFS at Yesons? And there certainly must be recordings of her singing as well, right?

Amy and Anjaq,

A few youtube clips are available, but again their singing performance was not professional at all. Their singing was highly lip synced, and sensible fans hate it.

🔗

In addition to their poor performance, there were other factors too. Stereotype on transgender and their legal status as woman (some of them did not undergo SRS, meaning that they had to go for obligatory military service for men).

People here nearly forgot the group Lady or Sinae. There are many entertainment stars coming and going, but they disappear within a few months or 1 year. The cycle is very short here in S. Korea. Sinae is now just a plain transsexual person among several thousands living here in S. Korea.

S. Korea is located in northeast Asia, a conservative region under influence of Confucianism. Regarding the stereotype on transgender, one exception was Ha Ri Su, who pioneered her career as transsexual entertainer in the region. Many other M2F transgender people took her as their role model and tried to enter the main stream from the underground entertainment industries, unsuccessfully.

http://www.tennisforum.com/showthread.php?t=97043 🔗

There are many music videos of Ha Ri Su. For example: 🔗

Dr. Kim commented that Ha Ri Su did not get any voice therapy or surgery in his column posted in newspaper: http://health.chosun.com/healthyLife/column_view.jsp?idx=373&cidx=30 🔗 [Link: health.chosun.com/healthyLife/column_​view.jsp/] (in Korean, you may use Google translator in chrome).

barbie~~

[AmyBerlin]

Dear Barbie,

I didn't know you lived in South Korea, I'm sorry! And sorry also for the geographic misnomer – for me "Northeast Asia" pretty much only meant Siberia and Northeastern China. I didn't know the name was also applied with reference to Japan and Korea.

A few youtube clips are available, but again their singing performance was not professional at all. Their singing was highly lip synced, and sensible fans hate it.

I think I made it abundantly clear in my previous postings that I'm not concerned with the professionalism of their singing. The only thing that I was concerned with was if certain pitches were stable.

Dr. Kim commented that Ha Ri Su did not get any voice therapy or surgery in his column posted in newspaper: http://health.chosun.com/healthyLife/column_view.jsp?idx=373&cidx=30 🔗 [Link: health.chosun.com/healthyLife/column_​view.jsp/] (in Korean, you may use Google translator in chrome).

That's an interesting thing to know.

Regards,

Amy

[barbie]

Dear Barbie,

I didn't know you lived in South Korea, I'm sorry! And sorry also for the geographic misnomer – for me "Northeast Asia" pretty much only meant Siberia and Northeastern China. I didn't know the name was also applied with reference to Japan and Korea.

I am the same. Every time I visit Europe, I become busy studying the map there. Too many countries. South America is the same. I have never been to Africa and Southeast Asia.

And infrequently, mails from Europe to me go to North Korea or Japan 

barbie~~

[sarahb]

Anja, let me clarify. I was talking about my speaking range cutting off around 300Hz. I can still go higher than that when I just try sweeping up or holding a higher note. It's just during normal conversation it'll cut out when I get into the higher pitches until I'm farther along in the recovery. I haven't done any measurements on my full range right now, and I kind of don't want to until I'm at least 2 months post-op, but I'll update on that front once I do decide to do it.

I just wanted to make sure people didn't think I had a range of 170Hz-300Hz now, which would be pretty bad 🙂

[anjaq]

Ah thank you for the clarification, Sarah. I really was thinking that the healing was not that far along and you got that limitation overall. Good to hear this is not so. I guess at 300-400 Hz womehwere you are hitting the point where there is that "break" that one has to work around or minimize with voice training a bit? I guess the healing will make it a lot easier to go over this then. Jenny even said that with her healing progess that point was basically almost gone 🙂 - But definitely wait with experiments until 2 months 😉 - no need to risk anything now 🙂 - its so great already and there is from what we heard from the others great improvements and healing to come. I am happy for you 😀 😀

[AmyBerlin]

Hi Anja,

I guess at 300-400 Hz womehwere you are hitting the point where there is that "break" that one has to work around or minimize with voice training a bit? [...] Jenny even said that with her healing progess that point was basically almost gone 🙂

Since the vibrating mass of the vocal folds is smaller, they posses a different overtone spectrum, which should aid massively in traversing the break by reducing and leveling out the differences between the two registers. I believe the break won't be very much of an issue post-surgery.

Amy

[anjaq]

I believe the break won't be very much of an issue post-surgery.

Yeah, thats what Jenny described.

I guess after the devastating reply fom Yesons I got, this is however now in the far far future for me if possible at all.  -  - -> https://www.susans.org/forums/index.php/topic,153931.msg1305990.html#msg1305990

[Carlita]

Not masculine at all, but just a woman trying to reach for a low note. Incredible!

Totally agree ... in fact, that's the absolute proof of how great this surgery is. You can't sound like a guy, Sarah, even when you try! That's got to be so empowering to you as a woman.

[Jennygirl]

Yeah, thats what Jenny described.

I guess after the devastating reply fom Yesons I got, this is however now in the far far future for me if possible at all.  -  - -> https://www.susans.org/forums/index.php/topic,153931.msg1305990.html#msg1305990

Still sounds like it's possible, but will just require a few secondary efforts to correct other issues?

Either way, I'm sorry to hear about the response you got from them. Personally if I were you, I still wouldn't let it stop me 😉

[anjaq]

Still sounds like it's possible, but will just require a few secondary efforts to correct other issues?

Well as i understand it, I first have to correct the other issues with voice therapy/rehab. In addition to that if I do the surgery I will again have to do a lot of voice rehab after that (with that amount of total rehab hours most people would probably tell me I would be able to get a great voice without surgery anyways). But the worst sentence was that the result may not be satisfactory as my conditions may prevent pitch increase. If they do warn me of that I think there is a fair chance of it happening and then basically the benefits from the surgery would be possibly not much. I saw that there is a percentage of people who come out of this with no better voice or increase in pitch and such a warning from them, I take it seriously. I am pretty stunned now. Also because they described 3 things of which only one was described by my voice doctor here and she more or less put it off as minor issue. Dr Kim describes all three of them more or less as the source of the more visible condition. I do have to write them again and tell them what I think caused this conditions - speaking in a more female voice for a long time. I think they still assume that I am not "transgender" as I did not introduce myself that way specifically and in the email Jessi asked if I was "transgender". I will have to clarify that while I am not "transgender" by self definition, she still will have to assume it. Or something like that. also I want to ask what they think can be done about the issue and what they consider a proper voice examination - I cannot make a trip to Seoul for a voice examination....

[sarahb]

Yeah, Anja, if it were me I'd likely still opt for the surgery, as there really is no down side I can think of. The only down side they mentioned was potentially not getting the pitch increase you're looking for, however, that's the case no matter what anyways. If that's the only potential side effect then I see no reason you can't still opt for the surgery and hope for the best. As you can see, Dr. Kim does great work, and seeing as how he's a voice surgeon in general along with doing voice feminization surgery I can't think of anyone better to take that risk with.

Yeah, it's a lot of money to risk getting no change, or minimal change, but with the results I'm hearing from them it seems worth it to me. Anyways, it's up to you, but don't give up. Keep practicing your voice with the voice therapist and keep putting that money into savings and if you do decide to go for it then you'll be all set 🙂

[anjaq]

Yeah, Anja, if it were me I'd likely still opt for the surgery, as there really is no down side I can think of. The only down side they mentioned was potentially not getting the pitch increase you're looking for, however, that's the case no matter what anyways.

Yeah well - it sounded like my risk of not getting that increase is quite higher than average. Additinally they said I need a longer recovery time and more post op voice training than usually, which means most likely that the voice would not be that great thus it needs more training to get up to sounding good - for me this reply kind of sounded the alarm that it may not be what I was hoping for for me. I tend to make bad decisions in surgeries, so I think it probably would be wise for me now to reconsider and maybe do another examination after doing some voice therapy for half a year or a year and see if the followup comes out better. As I said, I was hoping the surgery would help me with my voice but this assessment sounds more like it would be an additional burden, so I am frustrated now 

don't give up. Keep practicing your voice with the voice therapist and keep putting that money into savings and if you do decide to go for it then you'll be all set

I will...
Thank you...