Gradus ad Parnassum

Joseph Fux wrote his Gradus ad Parnassum ("Steps to Parnassus") as a guide to ascend a difficult challenge in music composition: counterpoint. His title describes how to climb the great Greek Mount Parnassus. The top of the mountain Parnassus was the home of the Greek Muses and the source of music.

Whether or not the Muses actually lived at the top of Mount Parnassus, it would be a view to behold in person. (Yes, it's real, a few people have been there, and they took some photos. Google tells all!)

More to the point, however, is that sometimes I get really itchy when I see Parnussus-du-jour ahead of me. It's hard to see the steps that lead up the mountain. School holidays are coming to a screeching halt (back to work in 12 hours!) and I am looking at a long and winding road with many mountains to ascend.

Rather than see the mountains, though, I need to remember that sage advice:

The greatest journey begins with a single step.

How true, how true! But if only that step were what I see? Fux put down those steps for one particular mountain - the composition of perfectly balanced counterpoint. Daily life doesn't have a textbook, though.

You and I are left to write textbook to our lives. Faced with the impossible, we are left to define the truly simple, manageable, and banal steps that lead me up the mountains ahead. Steps like:

• "pick up book from store", or
• "get in car to go to store" or, even better,
• "pick up keys from desk"

In reality, every step after is pretty much equally commonplace: write on form, put form in envelope, pick up phone, drive to work, get up. Their simplicity prevents being overwhelmed. It's all really simple.

These are the steps upon which life is built, the steps of our own art.