A theory of intelligence

A THEORY OF INTELLIGENCE.

This is a concept album, an idea to mix music and philosophy.

Hear the music while reading this text here:

http://djangsan.bandcamp.com/album/a-theory-of-intelligence

A theory of Intelligence:

“The idea for a theory of intelligence came to me a few years ago.

I wasn’t very good at school until I was 15 and decided to start to pay attention in class.

I was never good at mathematics, and it’s only when I went to a logistics school that I discovered why.

While learning about transport systems, production systems, warehouse management and supply chain I realized that mathematics and other things in life were systems created to translate and organize ideas projected into us by nature through our senses.

Here is the idea: our senses work as a gate, a link in between us and the outside world. By touching, smelling, seeing, tasting and earring, we send informations to our brain about what the outside world is. The conclusion for this would be that our understanding of reality is limited to our senses.

When people in the past created mathematics, music, philosophy, writing, and other concepts and technologies, they created interfaces in between our senses and reality, interfaces to help us quantify, measure, define, synthesize, express, analyze.

For example, music is an interface in between the sounds of nature and the human ear. By organizing the sounds in nature into 5, 7 or more notes our ancestors have created an interface to categorize, measure, name notes, and use those notes, reorganize them to create chords, melodies, rythms and  harmony.

Mathematics have helped us first, to understand basic things in nature, and then to understand things we couldn’t see, but only imagine, or extrapolate from what we can explore using our senses.”

 

A simple idea:

 

“As I wrote earlier, our senses are the link between us and the outside world, they are the gate that transmit informations from the outside to the inside.

Once our senses have detected something, the information is transmitted first to our emotions.

Emotions are directly linked to our senses, as if there were wires or cables in between the senses and the emotions.

Emotions are linked to our brain, which is the place in our body where feelings are analyzed, digested, processed, to generate an answer to these informations.

I have divided intelligence into two abilities, an ability to feel, and an ability to analyze, I have called those two things “Analysis ability” and “Emotional ability”.

In this theory, those two abilities are linked to create one type or another type of intelligence.

There are several degrees of sensitivity that trigger and suggest different kinds of intelligence.

To have a wider view of this theory, check the graphic.”

 

The graphic:

“I came up with this graphic on a 36 hour train trip while I had nothing much to do but think.”

“The Graphic is divided in two.

The horizontal part of the graphic (x), represents something called “Emotional Ability”.

The Emotional Ability of a person is determined by his/her ability to feel one’s environment, other people’s feelings, intentions, and situations.

The vertical part of the graphic (y) represents something called “Analysis Ability”.

The Analysis Ability of a person is determined by his/her ability to process feelings, analyze feelings, give them a meaning.”

 

“Here are the main five categories of intelligence that can be determined using the graphic:

“Normal”: The perfect balance in between the ability to feel and the ability to analyze those feelings.

“Disabled”: inability to feel or analyze at all.

“Executioner”: perfect ability to analyze, but no or almost no ability to feel, like a “robot”, made to execute orders.

“Unbalanced”: Strong ability to feel, but no ability to analyze. The inability to analyze overwhelming feelings makes the person “crazy” or “mad”.

“Genius”: A perfect balance in between a strong ability to feel and a strong ability to analyze.”

The purpose of this theory, how to use the theory:

“As I am not a scientist, I wouldn’t pretend to bring a real answer to what Intelligence is, but I saw that idea as a good opportunity to create an interesting artistic project, mixing philosophy and music.

I came up with this idea only through a process of observation, and didn’t use any past theories on Intelligence, theses ideas came through a very simple process.

I see the graphic as a help for people to know better who they are.

Anybody can place himself or herself on the graphic and determine what kind of intelligence he or she think one has, it is made as a tool to understand oneself better, a tool to help.

The “Disabled”, “Unbalanced”, and “Executioner” categories are extreme categories placed on the graphic as a reference. I believe most people will place themselves around the “normal” category. By placing oneself around the “normal” category, most people will be able to determine if they feel more than they analyze, or the contrary, analyze more than they feel.

Placing oneself on the graphic can help to see what direction can be taken in one’s life. For example, a person with more emotional ability than analytical ability could be good at art, but have trouble taking decisions. On the opposite, a person with more analysis ability than emotional ability could be good at mathematics, and good at taking decisions, but less good at art.

I think intelligence can evolve, progress or decay, according to the ability of a person to cultivate their analytical side, or emotional side, improve their knowledge, give themselves time to learn and grow.

This graphic only shows the intelligence of a person at some point in time. Everybody changes, we all evolve according to what we see, what we learn, what we experience, what we want.”

The Amazing Insurance Salesmen

The AIS win the 2010 GBOB in Beijing and China!

Read more about it:

Beijing Wins China Global Battle Of The Bands Final 2010 against 81 other bands.

From 2009 to 2013, the Amazing Insurance Salesmen, a band created by Jean-Sébastien Héry aka Djang San (Zhang Si’an at the time) won the battle of the bands in China and toured Mainland China as well as Hong Kong and Malaysia.

In 2011, the band played music festivals including the Zebra music festival, where The AIS played in front of 6000 people, playing on the same day and stage as Hong Kong Pop Star Edison Chen.

The band played at the “Fête de la musique” festival, organized by The French Embassy in China in 2011 in the cities of Wuhan and Shanghai.

The Beijing Haidian Park Festival and the Beijing Nanluoguxiang Festival are also amongst a few of the festivals the band has played.

The Amazing Insurance Salesmen album “Escape”, is also  for sale on itunes.

About The Amazing Insurance Salesmen:

The Amazing Insurance Salesmen is a band that was formed by French man Jean-Sébastien Héry (Zhang Si’an, Djang San, JSB), with bass player Maikel from Holland and drummer Maomao from China.

The band formed in the summer of 2009, when Jean-Sébastien Héry was looking for a way to go back to rock music after ten years of playing folk music, chinese inspired folk songs and Jazz.

He asked two of the best musicians in Beijing to join him in a journey to create a new experimental rock sound.

The band played original progressive experimental rock and songs inspired by bands such as Radiohead, Pink Floyd, Red Hot Chili Peppers, The Jimi Hendrix Experience and music genres like Jazz, Blues, Bossa nova, Fusion, Classical music etc…

The music of the band was very unique. It flowed between short melodic punk-rock songs and long instrumental guitar or bass driven progressive rock.

The band has played in China’s most famous venues at the time such as 2Kolegas, Mao Livehouse Beijing and Shanghai, Yugong Yishan, The Vox (Wuhan),  etc…

 The band doesn’t exist anymore but is now part of the Chinese rock music history as it is the first and only band with a foreigner leading it to win a music competition in China.

Sardine is back and the wheel is broken

Once Nathan sent a message and said “Are you back to Beijing”, I answered, “Yes, Sardine is Back and the Wheel is Broken”, I had typed Sardine instead of Sandrine, my girlfriend’s name, also the wheel of my electric scooter had been destroyed by one of the neighbors….and Nathan said “Let’s use that sentence for the band’s name”, that’s how this thing started”. (Djang San).

Sardine is back and the wheel is broken is an experimental and improvised musical punk experiment.

Every show played by the band is improvised and is never the same thing twice.

Even when recording the band improvises the whole set without knowing what will be recorded.

The band never practices and the performances are never rehearsed, it’s always a surprise.

Buy the first “improvised experimental punk” album here.


 

The Incredible JSB!

Live at “Yugong Yishan” in 2007

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The Incredible JSB! is a band that existed between 2006 and 2009. Originally initiated by Jean-Sébastien Héry, the band recorded one studio album and two live albums.  This is the presentation the band had in those days:

« The Incredible JSB! » is a band of multiple influences, introducing a musical mix of Jazz, Chinese Folk music, Blues, reggae, English rock music, French chansons and African rhythms. The lyrics are mainly written in mandarin Chinese. The band is established in Beijing, the capital of the People’s Republic of China.

It is the only existing band on this planet with a French singer singing in Chinese. It is the only band on the planet with such diversity in its music.

« The Incredible JSB ! » is a trio. Each musician represents a continent, and a different culture. “J” (Jean-Sebastien Hery, Zhang Si’an, France), Chinese instruments player, guitarist, singer, composer. “S” (Sunny Dee, Ghana (Africa)), percussionist. “B” (Benny Oyama, New York), guitarist and instrumentalist.

After several travels to China (Beijing, Shanghai, Lanzhou, Xinjiang, Taiwan…) and many different musical experiments, singer and guitarist Jean-Sébastien Héry (Zhang Si’an) decides to go further in his experiments by writing songs in Chinese mandarin.

His lyrics are inspired by Chinese classic poetry and his own imagination.

It’s in the year 2000, when he first came to China, that Jean-Sébastien Héry (Zhang Si’an) met with most of Beijing local music bands : 野孩子 (Wild Children), 二手玫瑰 (Second Hand Roses), 小河 (Xiaohe), 布衣 (Buyi), 冷血动物 (Cold Blooded Animal),王娟 (Wang Juan), 万晓利 (Wan Xiaoli)…

In September 2007, Jean-Sébastien Héry (Zhang Si’an) meets with butter fingers New-York Jazz guitarist prodigy Benny Oyama, who will introduce to percussionist Sunny Dee from Ghana.

The Band is sometimes joined by other musicians such as Bass player Daniel Brushmann (New York), Saxophonist Scott Gumbiner (California) and West China percussionist Ubuul Turstun (Xinjiang).

In November 2007, « The Incredible JSB! » recorded there first demo in Beijing during a concert at the Salud! Café in the Nanluoguxiang Street. It’s a 9 track demo, 34 minutes.

The band also recorded an 10 track demo at the Beijing media university in June 2008, just before the 2008 Beijing Olympics Games.

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Bob Dupont & The Outstanding Vegan Bankers

Check “Dolphin Sandwich”, the latest album from Bob Dupont & The Outstanding Vegan Bankers”.

New album out from “Bob Dupont and the Outstanding Vegan Bankers”

Download it for free or give us whatever you want, just click “buy” then put 0, 1 billion dollars or more 🙂

https://bobdupont.bandcamp.com/album/dancing-to-the-voice-of-a-dead-man

Listen to it here !

Bob Dupont & The Outstanding Vegan Bankers (from outer space) is a natural sequel to The Amazing Insurance Salesmen, the band that won the Global Battle of the Bands in 2010 in Mainland China, Hong Kong and Macao.

Bob Dupont is a character created by Djang San (Jean-Sébastien Héry), a vegan banker who doesn’t eat gluten, who plays guitar, parties hard, takes the money, and doesn’t see any contradictions in his life, a modern life man.

We hope these 11 tracks will transport you somewhere else and make you feel good, see you soon !

Bob Dupont is an alternative project created by Djang San, showing a different part of his talent not exploited in the Djang San character. So far two albums have been released under that name “The Man With No Face” and “Camembert Politique. “The Man With No Face” is a satire of the idea of “Face” in Asia with music based on 80’s british indie music. “Camembert Politique” is a satire of French politicians speeches over time from De Gaulle to Hollande.

Djang San – One Man Live Orchestra

In 2011, Zhang Si’an became Djang San and started a new project, the “One Man Live Orchestra”.

The Djang San “One Man Live Orchestra” is an extraordinary project where Djang San, alone on stage, plays several instruments and devices as a one man band. The project has already toured South Korea two times, Japan and China.

The project has been shown in many festivals and venues such as the Midi Festival in Shenzhen (China), the Hainan International music festival in Haikou (China), the COART festival in Lijiang (Yunnan, China), the “X-nights” (Beijing), the Croisements festival (Institut Français), the Zandari Festa (South Korea), the WMDF (Japan) and many more. Djang San plays his one man band orchestra regularly in venues in Beijing and around China.

The Music is based on loop stations and Chinese instruments Zhongruan and Pipa but Djang San sometimes also uses other devices such as keyboards or mini keyboards and guitars.

Videos are associated with the concerts and are played in the background.


Dreams of blue ocean

Djang San has recorded and composed music for many brands including Volkswagen, Holiday Inn, Acer, Homido etc…. He also occasionally composes and records music for documentaries and films.

Music composed for Dreams of Blue Ocean, a documentary about surf in China, release date TBA.

Djang San + Band

Le groupe Djang San + Band a été créé en 2013 autour des instruments zhongruan électrique et pipa électrique, deux instruments chinois anciens électrifiés par Djang San dans les années 2000 et intégrés pour la première fois par ses soins dans la musique moderne telle que le jazz, le rock, le rap, l’électro, l’expérimentale, changeant ainsi le cours de leur histoire.

Djang San – de son vrai nom Jean-Sébastien Héry – est un artiste connu et reconnu de la scène musicale chinoise. Écouter un de ses albums est une expérience particulière. Loin de la pop chinoise et de la variété anglo-saxonne et françaises diffusées sur les radios, ce Bordelais de 37 ans a développé un style très personnel. Il définit lui-même sa musique comme un

« croisement interstellaire entre la culture occidentale, chinoise, la musique classique, le rock, le jazz, l’électro et la musique expérimentale. » Son style est en effet inclassable. Le nom d’un de ses albums Music Dumplings (Raviolis de Musique) est un peu une métaphore de ce style hétéroclite, mais néanmoins cohérent : chaque album, chaque morceau a sa propre saveur, mais ils se complètent pour former un ensemble aussi riche et varié que l’est la culture de son pays d’adoption, la Chine.


Ré-inventeur électrique des instruments chinois Pipa et Zhongruan, il a permis une renaissance de ces instruments en Chine dans la modernité à travers le jazz, le rock, la musique folk, la musique électronique, la musique

expérimentale et bien d’autres styles.

Après plus de 40 albums Djang San continu à enregistrer inlassablement.

Djang San a été nominé pour le prix de “chanteur folk de l’année” par China Radio International en 2014.

Djang San a joué en Corée du Sud plusieurs fois pour le Zandari Festa et a également fais plusieurs tournée dans le pays, notamment pour la Seoul Music Week de 2017 et a joué au Japon en 2016 au WMDF Festival.



Zhang Si’an at Yugong Yishan in Beijing in 2008

Zhang Si’an (Jean-Sébastien Héry, Djang San) est sans doute l’un des premier étranger, en Chine, à avoir tenté l’expérience du chant et de la musique en chinois. Il est aussi probablement le premier non-chinois à composer à l’aide d’un instrument lui, bien chinois, le « Zhongruan » et à utilisé ce même instrument pour jouer du Jazz.

La musique de Jean-Sébastien Héry est aujourd’hui Electro-Folk, mélangeant musique folk chinoise, instruments chinois, guitare folk, paroles en chinois, anglais et français, et sons électroniques.

En solo, sur scène, Jean-Sébastien construit sous les yeux des spectateurs les morceaux piste par piste.

Zhang Si’an at the Midi festival in Beijing in 2008

En 2000, lorsqu’il vient pour la première fois à Pékin, il écrit sa première chanson en chinois. De nombreux albums, partiellement ou complètement en chinois, suivront.

En cette même année 2000, il fait la rencontre de la plupart des musiciens et groupes de musique locaux de l’époque et participe à l’occasion avec eux à des boeufs musicaux qui se finissent tôt le petit matin: « Wild Children », « Second Hand Roses », « Xiaohe », « Buyi », « Cold Blooded Animal », « Wang Juan », « Wan Xiaoli »…En 2002, il décide de rester à Pékin pour une longue durée et joue tous les mercredi soir au « River », détruit en 2003, qui est à l’époque au centre de la vie musicale underground de la capitale chinoise.

Voyageant presque constamment en Chine entre 2000 et 2004 (Beijing, Shanghai, Lanzhou, Xinjiang, Taiwan…), Zhang Si’an expérimente toutes sortes de musiques, folk, rock et électro.

De retour en France en 2003, il enregistre son premier album totalement ou partiellement en chinois « Lotus ». Cet album lui est inspiré par son voyage avec les membres du groupe « Wild Children » et le leader du groupe « Water Pushing Melon » à Lanzhou. Ils grimpent ensemble le mont Lotus, dans le sud du Gansu, (Lian Hua Shan) pour aller y écouter les chants des minorités ethniques locales.

L’album inclut un remix des chants de Lian Hua Shan, ainsi qu’un morceau que Zhang Si’an compose avec un instrument du Xinjiang, le « Rivapu ».

Zhang Si’an holding a Zhongruan

Dans ses albums suivants, « Is it China », et « Naixin », Zhang Si’an s’inspire de poésie chinoise classique et de sa propre imagination. Par exemple, les chansons « Jiefang wo » (« Naixin ») et « Jianlou house » (« Is it China ») sont des poèmes chinois anciens mis en musique. « Jiefang wo » correspond au poème « Tianjing sha qiu si » écrit sous la dynastie Yuan par le poète Ma Zhi Yuan, « Jianlou House » correspond au poème « Lou Shi Ming » écrit sous la dynastie Tang par le poète Liu Yuxi. Zhang Si’an est probablement le premier étranger à avoir utiliser des poêmes chinois classiques pour composer des chansons.

L’idée de l’album « Is it China » est de créer un mélange entre musique classique chinoise et musique moderne occidentale en utilisant des instruments chinois tel que le « Zhongruan » ou le « Hulusi » ainsi que l’ensemble rock traditionnel, guitare, basse, batterie. Sur cet album, Zhang Si’an enregistre tous les instruments lui-même. Il est aussi rejoint sur quelques morceaux par la chanteuse Liu Hong.

Zhang Si’an and Ubul Tursten from Xinjiang at the Ditan park festival in Beijing in 2010

L’album suivant, « Naixin », plus acoustique et intimiste, est une série de compositions à la guitare et au zhongruan, avec quelques accents blues et électro.

En 2007, la sculpteuse « Chen Zhuo » demande à Zhang Si’an d’écrire une musique pour son exposition « Born in the 80’s » qui a lieu à Tianjin la même année. De cette collaboration naîtra « Rêves d’enfance », mini album de musique d’ambiance.

En 2006, alors qu’il revient s’installer à Pékin, Zhang Si’an fait la rencontre d’un percussionniste du Ghana, Sunny Dee (qui créera plus tard le groupe « Afrokoko Roots ») et de Benny Oyama, jeune guitariste américain de génie. A eux trois ils créent le groupe « The Incredible JSB! », dont le principe musical tourne autour de l’improvisation rythmique et jazz sur des paroles en chinois. De cette collaboration naîtra un album « Mad in China » et deux live.

Zhang Si’an and his Zhongruan

Poster for a concert at Jianghu bar in Beijing in 2010″