Neuhaus, in his book ‘The Art of Piano Playing’ tells us we need to ‘let the water boil’. He suggests that the most effective way to master something or to fix a problem is to simply work at it without stopping until it is as we want.
He makes a comparison to boiling water. Paraphrasing him, if we want to boil water, we do not constantly switch the kettle on and off. We switch it on and leave it to do its work. Were we to keep switching it off, then it would take many times longer to boil – if indeed the water ever managed to boil in these circumstances. Of course Neuhaus uses the analogy of a pan on a fire, but I’ve updated it as I’m not sure any of us boil water using a pan on a fire any more.
Don’t keep stopping and starting
He says that when we’re working on something, if we keep getting so far and then stop and move on to something else, it’s the equivalent of switching the kettle off when we’re trying to boil water. Whether we are trying to fix a problem or make an improvement, will take far longer to accomplish than if we simply let the water boil.
He cites an example where he asked Richter how he had managed to overcome a technical difficulty in a specific piece of music. Richter’s response was that he simply worked on it unrelenting for 2 hours until the problem was resolved.
Of course, this advice has to be taken under advisement. We’re all aware of the dangers of injury due to constant repetition of the same action. We also know from Einstein that the definition of insanity is repeating the same thing and expecting a different result!
So, how can we interpret Neuhaus advice – which, on the face of it, is certainly solid enough. I think first there are a couple of things to add to the basic equation.
How big is our kettle?
We need to consider the the power rating of our kettle. By this, I mean how well equipped are we to fix the problem. You can certainly imagine that a pianistic titan such as Richter would be the equivalent of the world’s most powerful kettle! In piano terms, I’m probably the equivalent of one of those old travel kettles we used to have (I haven’t seen them for years now). If you’re too young to remember them, they took ages to heat enough water to make just one cup of tea.
How much water do we need to boil?
Secondly, how much water do we need to boil? I’m sure you’re familiar with the expression of trying to boil the ocean. The more water we are trying to boil, the longer it will take – whatever the power rating of our kettle. There will even come a volume of water at which no matter how long we leave it, the water will never even get past tepid.
Therefore, in applying Neuhaus’ advice, we need to take both of these things into consideration. However, we also will often need to reset our own expectations as to how much water we can actually boil!
How much water can we boil?
Of course, there’s no set equation for this. I have seen people try to make an empirical model of Neuhaus theory, however, I’m not sure they work. Rather, we need to ‘apply brain’ for ourselves.
For example, in all but the most exceptional of cases, a total beginner deciding to learn La Campanella is pretty much the equivalent of someone trying to boil the ocean. No matter how long that person spends, it will simply never happen. First, La Campanella is ‘too much water’ and secondly a beginner is the equivalent of a tiny strand of copper wire that would never generate enough heat to make any headway. Put the two together and of course there will be very little and very slow progress.
Bite sized problems
However, that doesn’t mean we can’t boil an entire bucket of water one cup at a time. As an example, I recently decided to try relearning Chopin’s Étude No. 3 in E Op. 10 (Tristesse). This is something I attempted in my teens and from memory at best played the middle section badly. I might even go as far as to say that suggesting I could even ‘play’ the middle section is probably a gross overstatement!
I downloaded the Cortot edition in which he suggests a set of exercises and decided to work through his recommendations. One of the first sections I decided to look at was the chords in ‘poco piu animato’. I followed the approach Cortot outlined and made good progress (for me anyway). I’m not saying it was necessarily fast progress, but it was noticeable daily progress. However, I still couldn’t manage to play it as written at an acceptable speed without fluffs.
Perhaps this was just too much water? Remember I’m just talking of little more than a bar here … and I fully recognize that for many this would already be a tiny amount of water. However, going back to my analogy of being a tiny travel kettle, I decided to break it down further.
One position change at a time
When practising, I noticed that my left hand wasn’t properly negotiating the position change between the second and third pair of 16th notes (highlighted below). So, I decided that this was the quantity of water that I needed to boil. Rather than working on the entire passage, I simply focused my attention on that one position change.
I didn’t manage to fix it in one sitting (although I did improve it). I chose rather to err on the side of caution to avoid potential injury. However, by isolating what to many might be a thimble full of water, I did manage to boil it! Then, almost, as if by magic, this fixed the remainder of the passage!
Therefore, the conclusion I reached is that Neuhaus was indeed correct – we need to let the water boil. Indeed, I touched on this same principle in this post and so what I have here is a logical progression. However, we need to be realistic as to how much water we are capable of boiling at any point in time. As always, with analogies, it’s important to apply them carefully or we can easily come unstuck. Just think of the disastrous results if we started applying the gym analogy of ‘if it isn’t hurting, it isn’t working‘ to our piano practice!
