I Created This Song And Video Of The Story Of Midas In Honor Of Our Mother Earth

Earth. From the beginning of our existence, she has been there for us, providing sustenance and shelter, energy and life for us. We take from her, but we don’t give back. We see the signs that she is growing tired, that she cannot keep on giving us so much for much longer, but we do not change. Throughout history, civilizations have fallen because of greed, but we do not learn. We are trapped in a cycle of greed and complacency, and, if we are not careful, we may end up destroying our home, and we may not get another chance to rebuild it.

With my song, “Midas", I wanted to create a new mythology, based around the classic story of Midas, that hints at the notion that the curse of the golden touch is a cycle that has happened before and will happen again. The Midas character in the video is not a king to begin with but a forest hermit who has a strong connection to nature and loves spending time with the animals in the forest, but who eventually falls victim to greed's grasp and consequently destroys everything he loves.

Just like the traditional Midas story, the song is centered around the theme of humanity's greed, but it brings nature and Mother Earth to the forefront and warns of the tragic impact that our greed could have on our world, our environment, the Earth, and everything we care about. I wanted to express my deep sadness for the situation and to show that drastic change is needed urgently, from all of us, working together as one.

The entire creative process for making the “Midas” music video is one that spanned several months.

For the music, I recorded everything in my own room, using my “MacBook Pro+Logic Pro+Newmann TLM 102” home-studio setup to record my vocals and a few real instruments, and using my piano keyboard to play all of the different virtual instruments.

I also created the characters and concept artwork. I drew the characters, scenery, and props by hand, and then created some vector illustrations using Affinity Designer. I wrote the storyline and sketched a rough storyboard, and all of this served as the reference material used by the animation studio to create the final animated video.

The animation studio All4Band (which, interestingly enough, specializes in heavy metal music videos) did a masterful job of bringing my vision to life with their animation and motion graphics work. And Sean Carey and Kathy Naunton helped bring the song to another level of quality and crispness through their song mixing and mastering, respectively.

I think more of our art and music should be dedicated to important causes and positive messages. The art and music that we create and consume reflect the values and priorities that we hold as a society, and, as artists, we have the ability and responsibility to help shape those values and to influence the cultural landscape.

That is why my mission, as Syne, is to spread positivity and curiosity through creativity.

I hope you enjoy my music video, dedicated to Mother Earth, and to all of you.

More info: syneverse.com