Told off by the 'neighbours'

[James_Alto]

Well I was having a great session at home only to hear the door knock.

A lady from the house across the field, came to complain that she could hear my flute .


I live in a sedate village - and usually avoid playing indoors if possible, but the summer heat made it unbearable in the woods so here I was. She wasn't rude or anything - just saying that it was getting on her nerves after a few hours

This isn't the kind of place you'd be assertive or send viral emails about your mother-in-law either. Mostly I was shocked that she could hear it from 20 metres away. Clearly I don't live rural enough

I wish my recorder would fix itself. I need a softer quieter instrument. Anyone told off by the neighbours?

[plunk111]

Mine are the opposite - they tell me they LIKE my flute playing (I play on my front porch a lot during the warmer times).

Hmmm... maybe it's the player...

Pat

[James_Alto]

Mine are the opposite - they tell me they LIKE my flute playing (I play on my front porch a lot during the warmer times).

Hmmm... maybe it's the player...

You laugh...but you ain't heard me play

When I was travelling around the world with a cheap wooden dizi, the hotel owners were always thrilled to have live music and asked me to play - they all said they found it relaxing.

Maybe it's the village where I live. People are well-off and are not short of material luxuries (except maybe a Rudall & Carte flute). I've been here for a few months, and always try to play away from village so that I can keep my distance. Perhaps the word 'prim and proper' comes to mind. They are used to utter countryside peace and tranquillity, so in terms of breaking the peace, I probably come across as the equivalent of a heavy metal head basher in a city block.

Anyway, I played out in the forest this evening. Got bitten about 5 times by bugs. Must be punishment for disturbing them too

[Kypfer]

just saying that it was getting on her nerves after a few hours

... I think that was very reasonable. I had a neighbour once who "played" drums ... that got on my nerves after a few minutes ... ended up having to move house

From the other viewpoint, perhaps you could take up saxaphone, bagpipes or similar, then you could offer her a variation

[JackCampin]

I once lived in a tenement flat in the centre of Edinburgh, in the area locally known as The Pubic Triangle (lots of lapdancing bars and the like, regular screams and crashes of breaking glass in the middle of the night). The pub across the street from me had late-night live heavy metal bands - I complained to the licencing authority and effective double glazing went in the same week. Sorted. The bar was actually pretty friendly, much used by the local hookers.

The neighbours' music that really got to me was a wind-up musical box.

The people living the other side of my bedroom wall were a quiet Chinese couple who worked in a restaurant across town. They had a young baby and took it with them to work. So they came back home with the baby between 3 and 4am. Understandably the baby was was not too chuffed about this and did what babies do to make its feelings known. The parents had discovered that the sound of a wind-up musical box, playing a little Mozart waltz, would help it go to sleep. They must have had it on a shelf a couple of feet from my head through the wall. It would take about 15 minutes to play that waltz over and over and over and over again, and as the spring wound down, slower and s l o w e r and s l o w e r...

[James_Alto]

From the other viewpoint, perhaps you could take up saxaphone, bagpipes or similar, then you could offer her a variation

Haha. I play the alto flute; Boehm C flute; whistles; harmonica; clarinet; guanzi; xiao; zither and bass recorder. She's got variation ... between a bad clarinet player... an even worse guanzi player, and the rest

Well guys - she does actually live over 15 metres away! The reason I moved out here, was to be alone so that I could play (at night - bass recorder and xiao at least) without disturbing anyone. Jack - I can understand a trinket musical box in a tight city apartment out of shell construction ... but her house is a good field's walk away!

She was rather nosey though - she said that I always seem to play the same thing

Now she's gone and hurt my feelings

[brianholton]

I lived in an Edinburgh tenement, on the same stair as a competition (GHB) piper: we'de hear the announecment of the tunes for a big competition on the radio, and 5 minutes after the programme ended, we'd hear him playing them. he was world-class, but he only played between 7.00 and 7.30pm. No-one ever complained, not even the nutter below me who compained about the noise of our kitten running around the (carpeted) flat...

I play SSP, guitar. dulcimer and mandolin as well as whistle. My neighbours shout requests over the fence if I'm playing in the garden.

But then, I don't play for 'hours' at a time, which may be the real reason for the complaint, rather than the music being made or the sound of the instruments. Simple duration can get listeners down, you know, no matter how good you are.

I'd recommend a peace offering (cake! ice-cream!) and an agreement on a schedule you can both be happy with.

b

[James_Alto]

I love the dulcimer!

Yes you're right - having fixed hours for playing helps. You sound like a nice neighbour. Whereas I, sociopath ...

I was playing in the middle of a Sunday afternoon though (indoors too)

Now, when they have their lawnmower on all weekend, I never complain, although the noise does make me shut the windows and stick on my headphones. Equally, when their pet rooster cockadoodledoos every morning at 6am, I don't get out the pen and threaten to turn it into a bank holiday barbeque. And when their horses drive by and dump truck loads of equine manure outside my apartment, I don't ask them to bag it up and dispose of it. As it is, I've just resolved to return back to the lakes where I play. It's frustrating sometimes, because the insects come out in full force, so I've had to renew my supplies of insect repellent sprays.

Flat living with neighbours ... people were never meant to be herded into such tightly packed densities. I know what it's like to have kittens scarpering around - froma downstairs perspective, it's quite grating, because they sound like mice, tumbling around. I find that even the slightest noise can break my concentration when I'm reading, and as long as the music level in the background is constant, that seems to dampen my distraction to sudden noises. Unfortunately shell construction of apartments, using a hollow suspension floor seems to be the way most apartments are built these days.

That's a very magnaminous suggestion. I think I'd be too shy to do it though ...

[Anyanka]

James, as your neighbour lives across a field, did she word her complaint something like "When I climb up the step ladder and stick my head out of the top bedroom window I can hear your flute if the wind is blowing this way, and after a while it gets very irritating, plus I get cramp in my calves from having to stand on tiptoe"?

I'd be delighted if my neighbours disrupted the 'silence' with music rather than hedge trimmers, lawn mowers, screaming children... mind you, sometimes I can hear the strange old man next door tweeting away distantly on a recorder. No melody ever emerges. Could be much worse. Could be a violin (I grew up living next door to a man who practised daily & diligently, but never got past the sounds-like-he's-disembowelling-the-cat stage).

However, we're definitely among the noisy ones on the block. Two of the five dogs love a good bark, and I play accordion, piano, whistle and flute with the patio doors open occasionally (not all at the same time though). No official complaints so far. The air hostess on the other side grumbles about the dogs' noise, but her flat-coated retriever pees on strangers' legs, so...

[mutepointe]

I looked up 15 metres and that was 50 feet.

May I make a suggestion? Stop by the lady's home with a small gift (homemade cookies or something) and "thank her for feeling comfortable enough to speak up". My money is on one of two things:
1. She's a lonely old cranky women and making friends with her will be worth it in the long run for both of you.
2. She's just not familiar with the music that you're playing and if you could manage to get into a conversation with her and find out what kind of music she likes and learn a few songs that she likes, this problem will go away.

My neighbors like my playing. They say my ocarina can be heard while I'm walking the dog while they're behind closed doors with the TV blaring.

[James_Alto]

James, as your neighbour lives across a field, did she word her complaint something like "When I climb up the step ladder and stick my head out of the top bedroom window I can hear your flute if the wind is blowing this way, and after a while it gets very irritating, plus I get cramp in my calves from having to stand on tiptoe"?

Lol. It was a bit bizarre - she came right round my door, rather than the open patio doors and was angling to look in. I suppose the neighbours have been here for decades - they're not used to sudden CHANGE like a flute player on a weekend afternoon

Sorry to hear the old man struggling with the recorder. I'd be more sorry for you, having to put up with a training violinist to be next door. Unless they are as good as Itzhak Perlman, Thomas Zehetmair, Lydia Mordkovitch, Joshua Bell, Nikolai Znaider or Gil Shaham, I don't want to know. Violinists have it rough - they're either really good, or really ... learning.

In the last rented place where I stayed, the landlord's cats would go completely haywire when I played the flute. They would start climbing all over me, and trying to get on top of my head whilst I was playing. You could see their behaviour suddenly crank up a few hundred notches!

Hey Mutepointe - you've definitely got more social skills than me. I can't do homemade cookies

The problem is...where I live, is incredibly affluent and rural (except me - I'm just renting a barn!) I feel like a misfit. There are only a few houses in the area, tied with acres of land for their gardens. There is a very cramp little village down the road, which would get me expelled if I was to live there. If you'd seen her, you would've got the impression that there was a bit of the Stepford Wives in it, as well as a sense of snobbery. But you're right - when I moved here, I thought I'd keep myself to myself, since it's very insular. Playing an instrument makes it very hard ....so maybe I should try harder to be friendlier, however I don't particularly want people inviting themselves over for Marks & Spencers cookies when I want to have a jammin' session lol. I can't stand t.v. If I hear it, it makes me want to hit 3rd octave flute at high volume right next to their wall.

Spot on about the music - I don't play popular repertoire. I did borrow a book of '100 movie film tunes' for flute or something. I'd never heard any of them, except a song by Madonna that goes something 'Like a Virgin'. When I played it on flute, I could barely recognise it. The music was completely distorted beyond the song. Equally, I suspect when people who don't listen to classical music, hear 'classical music', they think and surmise that it all sounds the same.

Okay ... my mission for the week ... is to try to be nice

[s1m0n]

G'wan! Heave a brick through her window. You know you wanna.. If you let her get away with this she'll walk all over you!

[Corgicrazed]

Have you tried a mute? I use them in the early morning so that I won't annoy people.

If you use a mute you will be able to play as long as you want, while your neighbor wouldn't be bothered.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but you play recorder right?
If so here's a link on how to make a recorder mute:

http://annedelong.timetraces.ca/recorder_mute.htm

As for our neighbors, they actually like my family's playing. I play a lot of songs from movies, and they adore it. My baby sister and younger brother definitely drive me nuts with their violins, screech scratch! One of my sisters, however, plays the violin absolutely beautifully. I love listening to her anytime. But when the others start scratching and screeching I flee to my room.

[MTGuru]

Maybe it's the village where I live.

Hey James, I've seen the movie about your village: Straw Dogs. And I learned from it that the typical English way to resolve neighborly disputes is simply to slaughter them all. So have at it, and let us know if that sorts it for you.

[James_Alto]

Maybe it's the village where I live.

Hey James, I've seen the movie about your village: Straw Dogs. And I learned from it that the typical English way to resolve neighborly disputes is simply to slaughter them all. So have at it, and let us know if that sorts it for you.

Haha. Dustin Hoffman is a star

The difference is, I know my way home, and I am no longer an academik! I can take my glasses off when I'm having a really spiffy night out

No my neighbours are more down to earth. Right down in the earth actually: