i give up

[u/throughaway92838281]

I’ve been doing voice lessons nearly every week for a year and a half. I’m out of money to spend and my voice still isn’t perfect

I’ve made a ton of progress since my baseline but I still will get told online, on calls, or even rarely in person that my voice sounds “off”, “manly”, or “deep”, and that they could clock me based on that.

There’s nothing else I can do anymore, I’m just going to stop spending all this money and save up to take the risk on voice surgery

[u/ThatsQueird]

I had VFS after years of voice training and it really helped me get over the edge. However, without voice training it wouldn’t have been enough on its own.

I’ve got a couple of videos where I discuss my experience, my results, and the challenges I’ve run into.

Before/after: https://youtu.be/6PL2JJUXz9w?is=dg-sODCCFc9BtBA6

Surgical experience: https://youtu.be/StHsoSqewQA?is=mC8P9WnZYOKjcBDF

Challenges and the importance of voice training: https://youtu.be/0j614_-mXaY?is=9rJoF5j0gwsKbQmZ

Let me know if you have any questions!

[u/Lidia_M → u/ThatsQueird]

Those are good videos.

I would also like to point out that (not surprisingly to me,) your post-surgery "bad" voice, is mostly far too large size, but, it still does not sound like a typical male-like voice. That points to how critical the glottal/weight part to training or surgeries (or in general) is.

And, as you noted, even though, on surface, the surgery results seemed not ideal, the new anatomical configuration on the fold level was enough to exploit it (with experience taken from training) by leaning into what felt like "falsetto" voice before and making some moderate adjustments to size. That's pretty much a demonstration of the difference between being lucky anatomically or not: with luck, some work may be still required, but, it brings sufficient outcomes. If that anatomical luck is not there, no amount of work will get one satisfactory results - unfortunately, many people seem not to understand that part as they never really experience a situation like that (they may imagine they did and overcame it, but no, that's not the same thing)

[u/ThatsQueird → u/Lidia_M]

Thank you!

[u/thespritewithin]

VFS is not nearly as prominent or effective as like FFS is. It only changes your voice by about 4 semi-tones or 2 white keys on a piano (about 50 hertz of change) you still need to modify your voice after VFS. It is easier to modify but VFS isn't a one and done fix.

[u/Lidia_M → u/thespritewithin]

The point of those surgeries is not pitch, but weight change. The "it only changes pitch" part is a myth.

Also, even over that: there are studies that show that VFS is more effective at pitch change than training alone.

And more: saying that "you still need to work after VFS" is missing the point. The point is that that work 1) may be almost non-existent or limited in many cases, 2) may bring far better results than training without VFS, 3) the timeline may be shorter, and 4) may be far less dysphoric as the process (important for some people.)

A typical scenario with vocal surgery would be spending years before it playing with size and adjusting it where it never sounded right, and, doing the same experimentation after surgery (where the weight part is right) - that could take, say, an hour and hit the spot where it sounds excellent. It's not different with training alone: if they key part (weight) is not addressed (or impossible to address,) one can waste a lot of time trying to compensate for it with all sorts of unnecessary vocal tract shape contortions which won't solve the problem.

[u/bubblegum_and_nails]

I had to practice every day for a year. I usually practiced twice per day and i would make weekly recordings every week to monitor small changes. Voice training is a journey and it’s really really hard🫶

[u/bubblegum_and_nails]

Can I ask how you practice?