Getting practice right for the neighbours

[Newfoundfreedom]

We were recently contacted by a friend and neighbour, a fellow Brit in our little Bulgarian village, who runs the local village community Facebook group. He had been contacted by the daughter of an elderly village resident, complaining that her Mum, who has "sensitive ears" was being disturbed by the noisy English musicians in the village playing at all Godforsaken hours, and as he knows the other English in the village, would he mind having a word before they get the police involved.

Given that we only practice one day a week, for about 3 hours in the afternoon, and my drummer and guitarist live about 30km away, I was rather perplexed by this.

 

So I told him it wasn't us, and if they were hearing anything on a night the only thing I could think of was my home cinema system up in the barn, and I would endeavor to keep it down. So for the next couple of weeks, I wore headphones when watching the cinema so there was absolutely zero noise. Then one morning when we were out shopping, the local plod turned up at the gate, which was answered by my 75 year old mum who's currently battling cancer and undergoing chemo every three weeks. Who did her best to explain we weren't in. I actually really, really wish we had been, because the sh!t would have seriously hit the fan right then and there. 

 

A couple of weeks later, my friend received another complaint about the noise we were making, except this time we were 40km away playing a gig in another town. My friend informed them as much, and told them there was no way that it could be us making the noise she was hearing. 

 

Since then, I've played as loud as I want, whenever I want, and will happily watch my home cinema in the wee small hours with the sound on full blast. Until I get an apology for sending the police round and disturbing my seriously ill mother, they can quite frankly kiss my @rse!

[gjones]

When the music is good, I don't have a problem. My neighbour across the street occasionally plays her music loud but she's got great taste in music.

 

I had a neighbour who played sax and he was excellent, so I didn't have a problem with it.

 

My neighbours came up to me, a few months ago, and asked if it was me playing the electric guitar the other night? I said 'Was it any good?' and she said it was great.

 

I replied, 'It couldn't have been me then....'. 😊

[StingRayBoy42]

This thread makes me so grateful for my neighbours... when I asked if me playing my Sousaphone was too noisy for them, they said they liked hearing me play.

Straight on the christmas card and Prosecco list!


I never play anything before 10am or after 9pm, that seems reasonable.

Edited August 10, 2022 by StingRayBoy42

[Dankology]

Reading all these stories here has reminded me of our horrible old neighbour back where we used to live.

 

She really was a caricature of a grumpy old lady: constantly complaining about parking, shouting through the wall when our baby was crying, lopping branches of trees & throwing them back over the fence, but also capable of a complete volte face and endlessly keeping my other half talking over the fence when she was trying to garden etc. I had bought a drum kit (it may even have still been one of those Arbiter Flats kits at this point) and tended to have a bit of a practice in the upstairs spare room when I got home from work - no more than 20mins at most at around 6pm or so.

 

One day after comig back downstairs, I noticed that her TV/radio was at blisteringly high volume and I felt a bit bad that I'd forced her to turn up so loud. This kept happening and the length of time the volume stayed up became longer and longer - eventually lasting several hours after I'd finished playing. One day I realized that what I could hear was Buzzcocks playing at full pelt through the wall - very much not her sort of music at all. A bit of detective work revealed that she was putting Radio 2 on maximum volume in the living room and decamping elsewhere in the house. 

 

After several days of this I brought my little FM sender thing in from the car (the sort of thing that allowed you to tune a car radio into an MP3 player), tuned it into the Radio 2's frequency and spent many happy hours pumping horror movie soundtracks, weird Youtube finds and late period Scott Walker into her house. If I'd had access to the old War of the Worlds broadcast I'd probably have beamed that through as well.

 

I suspect I'm an awful person. But nowhere near as awful as she was.

Edited August 10, 2022 by Dankology

[mcnach]

1 hour ago, Dankology said:

Reading all these stories here has reminded me of our horrible old neighbour back where we used to live.

 

She really was a caricature of a grumpy old lady: constantly complaining about parking, shouting through the wall when our baby was crying, lopping branches of trees & throwing them back over the fence, but also capable of a complete volte face and endlessly keeping my other half talking over the fence when she was trying to garden etc. I had bought a drum kit (it may even have still been one of those Arbiter Flats kits at this point) and tended to have a bit of a practice in the upstairs spare room when I got home from work - no more than 20mins at most at around 6pm or so.

 

One day after comig back downstairs, I noticed that her TV/radio was at blisteringly high volume and I felt a bit bad that I'd forced her to turn up so loud. This kept happening and the length of time the volume stayed up became longer and longer - eventually lasting several hours after I'd finished playing. One day I realized that what I could hear was Buzzcocks playing at full pelt through the wall - very much not her sort of music at all. A bit of detective work revealed that she was putting Radio 2 on maximum volume in the living room and decamping elsewhere in the house. 

 

After several days of this I brought my little FM sender thing in from the car (the sort of thing that allowed you to tune a car radio into an MP3 player), tuned it into the Radio 2's frequency and spent many happy hours pumping horror movie soundtracks, weird Youtube finds and late period Scott Walker into her house. If I'd had access to the old War of the Worlds broadcast I'd probably have beamed that through as well.

 

I suspect I'm an awful person. But nowhere near as awful as she was.

 

 

love it!