If you want to hear coloratura listen to the Korean soprano Sumi Jo. Then wonder how in the world she can do it at all, let alone do it well, which she does. The King Singers have two counter tenors so their recordings are good places to hear them.

I have always thought of myself as a tenor, but my voice teacher has told me I am a baritone, even though I sing higher than any other guy in the church choir.

Voice lessons are one of the best investments I ever made. I have a teacher who is classically trained, a good performer herself, but is sensitive to folk music which she lets me focus on. Like any instrument the voice is one in which we easily have fundamentally wrong technique which we do not even realize and which when corrected allows us to be a whole lot better than we ever thought we could.