PARIS: British singer-songwriting legend Sting finds the multiple genres and streaming platforms of the modern music scene &quot;quite odd&quot;, but still believes in the power of song to unite people. In an interview with AFP, the 74-year-old with 17 Grammy Awards and sales of over 100 million albums also spoke about his worries about AI as a tool for repression, as well as politicians &quot;whose idea is to separate us all&quot;. The former frontman of The Police was speaking in Paris ahead of the French debut of his partly biographical musical &quot;The Last Ship&quot;, which is set in his hometown of Wallsend in northeast England. It tells the story of the decline of shipbuilding on the River Tyne and is intended as a tribute to the working-class area that Sting left to pursue his music career. <h2 style="line-height: 2;">Why did you go back to your roots for this show?&nbsp;</h2>My entire life has been about escaping from what was offered to me. At a certain point, I realised that what I was given as a child was very valuable: a community, a family, a town with a purpose, and that had been taken away. My way of repaying the debt to my community was to tell a story of an industry that was shut down by the government, and the betrayal, but also to weave in a love story. I also think it&#39;s about many universal problems we face in society. Many communities are losing work because of technology, AI, and so I think it&#39;s highly relevant to what&#39;s going on politically. It&#39;s an act of resistance for people, and I think we need to resist what&#39;s happening. So the play is a kind of political statement. <h2 style="line-height: 2;">Can music and art be a form of resistance?&nbsp;</h2>I think art is a machine for empathy, where we can see the world through other people&#39;s eyes, you can step into someone else&#39;s shoes and see their point of view. That is very valuable because there are politicians in the world at the moment whose idea is to separate us all, to say: &#39;You belong to this club and you can&#39;t come in here.&#39; That separation is not useful for society. It&#39;s certainly not good for peace. So I think art has a place in fighting against that trend. This is why these politicians want to get rid of art, and education, and science, and diplomacy. All of these things I personally value, and I think art is my way of contributing to that feeling. <h2 style="line-height: 2;">Why do you place so much value on work?&nbsp;</h2>Human beings need to do something with their hands. I&#39;m very lucky. I use my hands every day to play the bass. I think human beings need to build things, to make things, to feel dignity, the sense of self. I&#39;m lucky that I&#39;m just enjoying myself. But it&#39;s work. It&#39;s hard work. But I would do it for nothing. I would do it for no money.&nbsp;Like a fish has to swim, I have to sing. <h2 style="line-height: 2;">How do you feel about what the music industry has become?&nbsp;</h2>What I believe now is that there are separate ecologies in music. Whereas before, the number one song in France or England, everybody knew it. Now there are so many genres and so many different streaming systems. It&#39;s quite odd. I&#39;m lucky in that I came up at a time when it was a monoculture. Everybody knows The Police. So I still trade on that. I&#39;m famous because of that. But now you can be successful in a niche and nowhere else. It&#39;s not better or worse, it&#39;s just different. <h2 style="line-height: 2;">Are you worried about AI and the music industry?</h2>I&#39;m not afraid, yet. I think it produces an interesting facsimile, but it does not feel emotion. So what can it really give us? It can give us a trick. A mirror. I think there&#39;s a way of using it for medical research. But to actually produce art that we&#39;d want to see or listen to, I&#39;m not sure. I&#39;m worried more politically about what AI can do, the harm, in the wrong hands. Leaders who will use it for increased surveillance of society. It&#39;s a very useful tool to keep people observed and controlled. I fear that more than I fear an artistic invasion of my life.

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The 74-year-old with 17 Grammy Awards and sales of over 100 million albums speaks about his worries about AI as a tool for repression, as well as politicians "whose idea is to separate us all".

Sting finds fractured modern music scene 'quite odd'

SRINAGAR: In a modest workshop filled with the fragrance of seasoned wood, 78-year-old Ghulam Mohammad Zaz continues a craft his family has preserved for eight generations <span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; white-space: normal; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-color: initial; float: none; display: inline !important;" id="isPasted">&mdash;&nbsp;the making of the Kashmiri santoor. Surrounded by tools that have outlived artisans, he works slowly, each strike and polish echoing centuries of tradition, crafting the musical instrument. &quot;Seven generations have worked and I am the eighth; I have no guarantee anyone after me will do this work,&quot; Zaz said softly, speaking in Kashmiri. Once, several of his family members shared this craft in the heart of Indian-Occupied Kashmir&#39;s main city, Srinagar.&nbsp;Today, he is the last in the city to make the instruments by hand. &quot;If I tell anyone to make something, they won&#39;t know what to do or how to make it,&quot; said Zaz, who produces around eight to 10 instruments every year, selling for around 50,000 rupees ($565) each. &quot;It is not as simple as just picking some wood <span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; white-space: normal; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-color: initial; float: none; display: inline !important;">&mdash;&nbsp;one needs to find the right kind of wood.&quot; The santoor, a hundred-stringed zither-like instrument played with hammers, has long been central to Kashmir&#39;s musical identity, giving the Muslim-majority region its cultural distinctiveness.&nbsp;Mystical music&nbsp;Historically, the santoor formed the backbone of &quot;sufiana musiqi&quot;, Kashmir&#39;s mystical music tradition, with its hypnotic and reverberating sound bringing tranquillity. &quot;Musicians used to come from Iran to Kashmir; they used to play santoor and other instruments,&quot; said Muzaffar Bhat, a music professor at a government college in Anantnag. &quot;They used to sing in Persian ... we adapted the santoor from them and assimilated it into our music.&quot; The instrument received a new life in the 20th century. In the 1950s, celebrated Indian musician Shivkumar Sharma <span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; white-space: normal; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-color: initial; float: none; display: inline !important;">&mdash;&nbsp;born in Jammu and Kashmir in 1938 <span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; white-space: normal; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-color: initial; float: none; display: inline !important;">&mdash;&nbsp;used the santoor to play classical music. &quot;Due to that, this became popularized in the classical circles throughout India,&quot; Bhat said. Suddenly, the santoor was no longer confined to Kashmiri sufiana gatherings <span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; white-space: normal; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-color: initial; float: none; display: inline !important;">&mdash;&nbsp; it had become a celebrated voice in Indian classical music. Yet tradition faced challenges as Western instruments and global music trends began to overshadow local sounds. &quot;A lot of our traditional Kashmiri instruments became sidelined,&quot; said Bhat. For craftsmen like Zaz, this meant fewer patrons, fewer students, and the slow decline of a centuries-old family profession. Zaz sells his instruments in Indian-Occupied Kashmir, but also receives orders from Europe and the Middle East. But there is hope. A revival, however modest, is taking root. &quot;Since the last few years, a new trend has started,&quot; Bhat said. &quot;Our youngsters have started to learn our traditional instruments.&quot;

In Srinagar, 78-year-old Ghulam Mohammad Zaz, the last traditional santoor maker, preserves Kashmir’s fading musical heritage as younger generations slowly begin reviving interest in the region’s centuries-old instruments and mystical traditions.

Articles tagged with "Music"

Sting finds fractured modern music scene 'quite odd'

Strings of identity: Kashmir's fading music endures