Terry and Count, I remember Dave Liebman giving a masterclass once where he disagreed with teachers who said you could feel your throat, he said the only time he could feel his throat was when it was sore:) This is the only time I will ever disagree with Dave. The part of your throat where you can make that fake coughing ahem sound--I feel that I can control the opening of my throat at that point. This is where I think of opening my throat and with certain altissimo notes I actually think of closing it a bit--you know the trickier ones. The vocal chord positioning has the most impact on these notes. I think of it like playing a brass instrument where you have to hear the partials. All of this gets you 2 things: 1. The ability to place altissimo notes and have them speak on your horn. 2. This really improves your tone. That tone matching exercise I talked about at the top is intended to cover notes below the altissimo range as well. You're basically finding the optimum vocal chord, throat positioning to let that note speak. 3. A side benefit is being able to crack or split notes on purpose. Ex. Sanborn's high F# when he gets that grit in the sound. He's adjusting his vocal chords slightly and getting several partials at once. I was mostly an alto player through grad school, but picked up tenor when I got to NYC for work. Recently I realized I needed some more fundamental sound study on tenor so I've been revisiting the overtone series on tenor. It's something that you can take for granted after a few years. Kristy

ok--it gets you 3 things:) see above for context

Opening your throat up...i Know how to do that but i dont exactly know how to change it, I dont even realize if im doing it (if i am at all). That sanborn thing...I love that, my friend hates it though he doesnt even think anyone should do that, and some reason i can do that VERY easily on a dukoff + la voz reed...vandoren reeds i cant...oh well haha. I do that on accident sometimes.