There was a joke

That's sev'n.

How do singers count 7/4 time?

one-two-three-four-five-six-sev-en

I had more issue with finding singers with enough rhythm sense to count themselves in and get their phrases right without a reference track, but that's past-tense for me.

Maybe he's referring to semitones outside of the scale/key? Of course it's easy to hit the semitones in a standard scale (major, minor), because they just go well with everything else.

Yes, it is less rare. It happens all the time. Incidentally, everything is still the same. It's not a matter of if this happens, but who is initiating it.

3 semesters into composing atonal music at my University for atonal comp classes. So hard to get used to, but also extremely expressive. Been thinking about adapting some of my works for chip...

I'm not sure where you went but sight singing does not avoid altered tones. Beginner sight singing does but obviously you branch out from there. There is highly chromatic sung music (look at Ligeti or Webern: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JnuAaKiX1sg, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W_xGz0YIZdo).

Now your average singer is most comfortable in a predictable key with a limited range of say an octave and a half, but if you can keep track of your pitch and land further ones accurately in your range, there is no problem. I'm not sure where this talk of semitones came from but the only scale that doesn't include them is the whole tone scale. I've never met anyone who's had significantly more trouble with the semitones of a scale before.

*or the whole steps

**augmented seconds (le to ti in harmonic minor) I have though

There is 12 tone and so called atonal music, much respect to people who do them well.

Wouldn't it be less rare for a normal person to hit a semitone, if when taught early, semitones were given the same artistic value? it would change music as we know it!

I think it is a matter of practicality. There is a range of intervals that most singers are comfortable with and find easier to sing. Whole tones, third, fifth, octave...these are all relatively easy to hit spot on.

Singing in semitones, while totally possible and quite common, is harder than whole tones. It's like when you record a singer... a lot of the people I've recorded in my life wanted to have a reverb-drenched mix of their voice in the headphones because that way they can hear their last note and hit the new one more precisely, especially for semitones or long intervals like 8-9 semitones. They're also dependent on the music. If they have "help" from the music, meaning there are clear notes and rhythms helping them figure out where to pitch their voice, it's much easier for them to hit it right. But if you're dealing with super minimalist music where not a whole lot of notes are playing to guide you as a singer, certain intervals become quite challenging. That's why it sounds so damn good when a jazz singer singing over almost no music hits that perfect semitone before the band has played any notes to indicate where it's going. We're conditioned to prefer, or at least expect certain intervals, and then POW.. this perfectly pitched weird ass tone comes in and surprises you. A very powerful tool.

The complex foundations are there, and they are used all the time, but as with anything.. when you get into more complex shit, you need people with a certain degree of talent to pull it off properly.

Music theory annoyed me. I always wondered why sight singing avoided di,ri,fi,si,li,te,le,me, and ra. So much more could be possible for singers if they learned the entire chromatic scale. It would be nice to have had a more complex foundation seeing as how there are so many more scales than the major scale... 12 tet is really dissonant anyways. what ever happened to just tuning? I hope to find an instrument someday that can hit tones that show a cymatic pattern.

Sol La Ti Do is "easier" to sing than Sol Le Ti Do. It was typically avoided but in contemporary music this rule has weakened. But the point of both harmonic minor and melodic minor is to raise the leading tone from Te to Ti in the V, making the arrival to i much for definitive. The difference between v to i and V to i is significant but both can be nice.

La or Le ascending (melodic or harmonic minor) is personal preference. Descending in minor Te Le Sol is much more definitive.

btw it's called "harmonic" minor because the V to i is more harmonically conclusive.

If this all seems messy, welcome to music theory.

It was also to help singers, since whole tones are much easier to hit and semitones. Or so I've heard.. dunno....I can't hit any tone myself. When I sing, babies cry.

They were also trying to make V-i without accidentally sounding "arabic" by playing a raised second.

its a little confusing to be sure. basically, the typical modern understanding of scales and harmony is different than how it was taught in the 1600s-1900s. the melodic minor is a way of easily conveying, in scale form, what was actually the "sound" of a V7-i progression (which is non-diatonic, or not "natural", to the minor scale) that, for whatever reason, classical ear loved so much. Similar to the picardy third, which was the practice of using a major chord resolution at the end of a minor (or modal) piece of music.