The Spirit of the Movable Clef looked down at the world he had just created: a stark, lifeless, empty sheet of staff paper. Nothing but barren, black lines stretching as far as the horizon. It needs life, thought the Spirit, an uplifting melody, and everything must be in harmony with each other. I'd better get to work. And with some trepidation over the final outcome, the Spirit began his composition.
The Spirit first laid the foundations for the piece: the rivers that twisted and squirmed, in the manner of treble clefs; the gorges and canyons so straight they were reminiscent of bar lines; the cataracts with their steady, soothing beat. All this materialized from the Spirit's pen, which consisted of nothing more than his own will. Ink was abundant; he just dipped his pen into his shadow.
The Spirit of the Movable Clef stared at his emerging masterpiece for a long moment. The rhythm and the mood were set, but there was no sound, no music; the land finally had water and form, but it still lacked life.
With ever-increasing speed, the notes began to appear. First came the groves of trees in the form of whole notes, little oases placed here and there. In certain places, the Spirit decided to place whole lines full of thirty-second notes, and forests sprang up from the ground, now rich and moist from the treble clefs. Herds and flocks of animals emerged from the profusion of chromatic scales, adding sounds of their own to the Spirit's.
Emboldened by the piece's successes so far, the Spirit of the Movable Clef began to work even faster, adding embellishments in the places that were bare of chord. As he scribed tr for trill, birds began to appear in the thousands, warbling in pleasure for just being alive, and for being able to participate in the Spirit's composition. Fish appeared in all the waters, jumping out into the air and as a result making dainty grace note noises, in counterpoint to the ocean's thrum and the lilting tones of the brook. Perhaps some more grace notes, thought the Spirit, and then he was finished.
Yet, as he gazed at the paper, now almost black with ink, he felt a gap in the music. Something missing, or maybe something was not quite right... Perhaps that chord... ah, yes, if he changed it to a secondary dominant, it would give the phrase more depth and feeling.
At the inscription of the secondary dominant, wildflowers appeared in profuse quantities; but still the piece had an unfinished feel.
In frustration the Spirit of the Moveable Clef was about to put the piece away to tackle later when he remembered: oh yes! The dynamic and tempo markings! He quickly scanned the piece and put in the markings: subito fortissimo, poco decelerando, and a multitude of others. But he was hasty and the words came out scrawled, imperfectly formed. Sometimes he even placed forte where mezzo piano should have been. With each new marking, a woman or a man appeared.
And in this manner the Spirit created the human race. Not only were they shoved into the piece as afterthoughts; the Spirit in his haste made them imperfect compared to the other parts of the music. Most of the time they had no place in being where they were or were just plain wrong. Yet for all their mistakes the tempo and dynamic markings nevertheless dictated what all the other elements of the piece did. Leaving out the dynamics and tempi would have probably created a better composition.
Lina, the Spirit's wife, came in as he was about to title the piece. Looking at it with a critical eye, for she composed better than her husband, she exclaimed, "It's lovely! But what's with the dynamics and the tempi? Some of them are written wrong or misplaced." And with a self-deprecatory shrug, the Spirit of the Moveable Clef tried to erase the marks. However, they would not rub out.
Another shrug, this one of helplessness, shook the Spirit's shoulders as he titled his piece "Earth" and tossed it into a stack of other compositions.