Sébastien Badel
Man is made
to live with passion
from the heart
Born in France, near Saint-Etienne, 1971.
French dad, Dutch mum.
I grew up in Holland, from age 1.
Good in math, sports and music. Started piano at 11.
Mum was determined.
After high school, I entered School for Higher Arts & Music in Utrecht, with piano. 4 years of studying music showed me music was for expression, but not to make a living. I left for France. With new friends we started a company on a farm, in organic food production. I learned that musicians need to sweat and work hard, to not lose their mental heath. So I did.
Entering into Finance
The company had bookkeeping needs.
As descendant of an accountant
of the Dutch Ministry of Finance,
I probably inherited my grandfather's gift with numbers.
So I volunteered and I ended up co-owner and financial manager
for two enterprises.
The mission:
"Make order in finances
and produce the statements."
Supervised and trained by accountants for a couple of years, I learned the finance & bookkeeping skills.
Then I started to develop applications, with Excel & VBA, to automate the repetitive tasks. Users entered their transactions and the application transformed created importable journals, "clicked" into the software.
Entrepreneur
After 14 years, company and family needs changed. My career as bookkeeper stopped and I started my business, taking on various jobs : ECB Badel
Web Developer
Since 2002, I also sacrificed many nights to learn to code. First by need for business & bookkeeping, but is became quickly a pleasure. An excellent way for creativity.
I am still passionate about the technology that makes it possible to offer applications, tools & content to unlimited numbers of people all around the world. Since 2020, I professionaly develop websites and various business applications.
Piano Art
What about my piano carreer ?
There is a time and place for everything. After working hard,
piano is a perfect way to relax and give meaning to my life.
Artistic expression is an important aspect of my personality, essential for balance and identity.
I consider myself to be an artist, needing expression for a personal voice.
I slowly, but steadily work on my crafts and various artistic skills.
Art must ripen. No body enjoys unripe fruit. A tree must grow and fruit must ripen, to be enjoyable. An artist needs to grow into what he or she has to offer. It usually takes a lifetime. Patience and perseverance are part of the art. I continue patiently to develop my piano work and ideas, not knowing what life has is store, or where the ship will strand. I simply enjoy myself, without agenda.
Art is to express deep personal thoughts and feelings. Not to get glory from others. Pure art is not expecting other people to value it, but to make them think. Of course artists are happy when people appreciate their work, but they'll do it even if the contrary is true.
What counts is to do what we deeply believe in.
And if we do so, things grow little by little into perfection.
Strive for success and public recognition defiles pure art, making it common and thus useless.
It is a resposability for artists to keep their motivations pure and not get thirsty for success.
This is one of the reasons I keep working hard, doing jobs to make a living.
More thoughts on artists and their work.
Sébastien Badel,
alias Aman
Belledonne, Rhône-Alpes, France
January, 2024.