Autres Pays, autres mouers.

Round our way they won't turn up their TVs. They will turn on their stereos and play at top volume until two o'clock in the morning. Or plan to fix their motorbikes in the front yard at that time, which involves revving it for two or three hours.

My sister lives in a genteel part of London. In her street, the BBC Radio 3 Chamber Quartet can be heard rehearsing in one of the houses. I would love that as a background noise but couldn't take the effort to move up two or three social classes.

It has to be an old, settled neighbourhood before you can play music. Short-term occupancy makes for much more boisterous and aggressive neighbours. It was this way in Belfast when they made the Ring-Road. The old neighbourhoods were rough, but people had reached an accommodation with each other. If that involved burning down the Bar, it was something that the majority agreed on. It wasn't nice, but it was understood. They all got moved out with compulsory purchase, and when the scheme stalled, new families were moved in. Things suddenly got a lot rougher.

Even in the pubs where we arrange with the Landlords to occupy a room and play music, there can be resistance. One of the barstaff in one pub refuses to turn off the piped music until the Landlord explicitly tells him. It doesn't half make an impact on live music.

If this was my theory I never would be able to practice fife. While is important to practice everything you play, including whistle and harmonica, if like me that's what you play, but it is also important that you don't rely on your neighbors to watch TV at full volume while you practice.

If everyone played music, like it's supposed to be, (sigh), we wouldn't need to have this discussion.

So sad that watching TV all night is normal, while playing amateur-level music for enjoyment is 'eccentric'.

Don't know why I can't just get with the program.

If everyone played music - that would be a nightmare unless you live in your own house with at least 1 acre of empty space between that and the next neighbor!

I've always been extremely happy not having to live next to me.
And I am even happier that my upstairs neighbor, who plays electric guitar, bass, keyboard, percussion very poorly and yet has no qualms teaching his non existing skills to other people, is no longer living there.

Blessed are the few!

Right! Sounds pretty normal IME.

Feadoggie

Here's a photo of my low-cost whistle mute. The set up shown reduces the sound level by about 1/2 to 2/3 and is easier on cat ears (and human) .... It plays a little sharp, but for practice by yourself, that shouldn't matter too much.

It looks similar to my Scotch-tape setup, but as I said, everything I've tried mutes the low notes (about the lower half of the first octave) until they almost don't sound, and the high notes barely change in volume. To get the high notes significantly muted, I pretty much have to cancel out the low notes altogether.

Scotch tape is rather flimsy. The masking tape has worked well on all my Generations and a Dixon, with no problems w/ low notes. The nice thing about tape is that you can control the volume by where you place it across the window. If I close off too much of the window, then some of the notes won't play well. So you may want to try different kinds of tape and covering less of the window. I'm sure the handy man's secret weapon would work just as well as masking tape....

This was in our newspaper this morning. I don't know these people but I bet I know people who know them. This occurred in the most notorious town where I provide social services.

May 24, 2012
Man shot in Lincoln County over music complaint
By Staff reports
The Charleston Gazette

HARTS, W.Va. -- A Lincoln County man faces felony charges after he allegedly shot his neighbor with a shotgun in a dispute about loud music.

Fulton Toney allegedly walked to Brian Lee Maynard's residence on W.Va. 10 in the Compass Point area of Harts and asked him to turn his radio down because it was "too loud and he was getting ready to go to bed," according to a criminal complaint filed in Lincoln County Magistrate Court.

Maynard, 31, allegedly pulled a shotgun out of his vehicle and shot at Toney's feet. Toney suffered wounds to his stomach, leg and arm, according to the complaint.

Toney pulled a pistol out of the waistband on his pants and fired a return round at Maynard, according to the complaint. Toney then ran back to his residence and his wife called Lincoln County 911, according to the complaint.

Maynard went inside his residence and "continued to be very violent," by breaking the butt of his shotgun on the floor while screaming, cursing and punching the walls of his residence, according to the complaint.

Lincoln County Sheriff's Lt. M. Hatfield and Deputy G.W. Linville arrested Maynard, who is being held in the Western Regional Jail on a $60,000 bond. He faces felony malicious wounding and brandishing charges.

One of the benefits of playing highland bagpipes is no one minds when I practice whistle

But seriously, in college you ought to have ample opportunities. Thinking back to my college days I could have practiced:

In the stairwell of my dorm.
In the lobby of my dorm (near the piano...)
In the common area outside my dorm.
In a parking lot on campus.
In a green space on campus.
Near the athletic fields.
In a practice room in the music building.
In an empty class room.

I could have practiced in my dorm room too, I suppose. People probably wouldn't have minded that as much as the loud stereos or electric guitars (think "11").

Whistle mutes are easy to make. I do mine different from the photo though. I take a narrow strip of card stock and fold it into a V. I hook the V onto the blade of the fipple, with one end going inside the body of the whistle. So the point of the V points towards your face and half of it is inside the whistle. This mute will quiet all the notes to whatever degree you desire (wider paper = less whistle), without impacting tuning. I rarely do that (see opening comment) but I did at a camp two years ago to play after curfew along with my friend, who plays harp, and it was perfect. The whistle responded normally, but it was barely audible.

Way cool !

How is it held in place ? Any chance you could post a photo ?

trill

Good to know that there are lots of practice places. Thanks for the list!

When I've done it I just let gravity hold it there, but for a more permanent solution you could use a dab of poster putty or something.

I don't have a photo, but here's a schematic:



I think I read about it on David Daye's old website.