artist Sean Hully

I'm sorry but I have decided to delete my music from CBC Radio 3. Thank you for listening.

There are two types of knowledge that can be classified during skill and competence acquisition as mentioned by John R. Anderson in 1982. Anderson extrapolated this model from Fitts' model which was divided into three categories:

1) cognitive stage of learning (basic understanding)
2) associative stage (smoothing out)
3) auotonomous stage (automatic)

Anderson combined the first two categories into one type of knowledge which he termed 'declarative knowledge.' Declarative knowledge is 'knowing that.' When you first hear a song, you have declarative knowledge of that song with an approximate rating of .1 depending on the complexity of the song. With each repeated listening, this declarative knowledge is strengthened additively by .025. So after listening to a song three times the factor will be .1+(.025x3)=0.175. This is a slow but effective process of strengthening your understanding as you absorb the lyrics (if any), form, rhythm, melody and any other musical parametres. A rating of 1 means that you know all aspects of the song through passive listening and maybe participatory action through singing, air guitar, whatever. According to this formula, this would mean you would need to listen to a song about 36 times to have solid declarative knowledge of the song. Of course, putting forumulas and hard numbers to abstract psychological concepts can never be correct due to the immense number of variables involved. However, it does help to form a basic paradigm as to the rate at which we absorb and form understandings about new things.

The other type of knowledge according to Anderson is 'procedural knowledge'. Procedural knowledge is 'knowing how.' This is the stage at which you are applying and transforming declarative knowledge about the song into procedural knowledge so that you can reproduce the song on your instrument. This transformative process is known as compilation. Compilation is combining your musical, kinesthetic and theoretical knowledge with the knowledge of the song until you can play the song on your instrument. Even after the song is learned, you continue to learn by the process of 'tuning' which is constant refinement of your playing as it becomes autonomous and as you search for better ways to play it.

Lately I have returned to an old friend that I have ignored for so long. This friend is steady, never wavers and helps me to find the pocket. My friend and teacher pushes me along but only at a rate which I choose. I am reminded that my sense of time needs to be constantly revisited. My strict teacher can be turned off and on without emotional strain or vindictiveness. I am shown the division of time so that the music I make can be led to a place where it can merge with the rhythm of the cosmos.

Five years after I released my album Interaction, I have been informed today that one of the songs, It's Alive Here, has been on the charts for the website artistunderground.com for the past four weeks.

I totally forgot about that I had music there and about the website itself. The fact that my music has suddenly surfaced there after five years of obscurity and for no apparent reason is nothing short of hilarious. Don't get me wrong, I'm very pleased and grateful that my music has an inkling of aesthetic value. This is quite a surprise boost for me now, especially with my modest little Second Cup gig I have coming up next week because I haven't played my own material live in a year. I've been gigging but with other bands. Like a garbage goal, I'll take it.

Since releasing Interaction in 2003, I have been continuing as a saxophonist around Toronto and went to grad school in music. I'm now ready to take another stab at the singer/songwriter thing since it seems to be in my blood. My current priority is to get a car so I can get back out there and do gigs again. I sold my old car for both environmental and economic reasons a few years ago, but sadly, I was not rewarded for this sacrifice. In fact, my gigs slowly dried up as it got around that I no longer had wheels. So if I want to play, I have to drive. I'd love to get a hybrid car but the cost is just too great with both the initial capital costs and insurance. I will make the greenest purchase I can for now.

I've got a new show ready to go.  Check out my new release "Hypnotised". I played all the instruments on the track which are guitar, bass, flute, clarinet and saxophone. Oh yeah, I sang too.