Those wonder years

[GPB]

Years ago, I had just started to play the violin and would practice in my apartment. As soon as I would start tuning up it seemed all the washing machines in the building would go on at once. This happened night after night. I lived across the street from the fire department. There sirin was so loud it was painful. So I walk outside one day with my case and these firemen stop me to complain abought the noise. They offer to start a collection to pay for violin lessons. I moved to the country soon after. When I tuned up there the cows would start to moo. Then I got a mute

Let forth with some of your own trials and tribulations from those wonder years

[linuxviolin]

Maybe I've had too many lessons- every time I go to the post office in the summer the postmistress says how much she enjoys hearing me play when she walks the dog during lunch (doesn't work in the winter because the windows are usually closed).

[Jeffh]

I have a similar situation as linuxviolin. I live in a small apt. next to where i work. A couple of the receptionist ladies have mentioned that they can hear me practicing in the evenings and that it sounds good, which is a mystery to me!

[BobbiFiddler]

My childhood bedroom was over the garage, and the windows peered into the yard of house directly behind ours. That's where I practiced.

One summer afternoon, the fine old man who lived behind us reached across the fence to hand me a baseball and bat. Apparently, he'd decided to risk his windows than listen to me scratch through Kreutzer.

[technique_doc]

I used to practice at 6.00 am in a small room at the back of my house. In the summer, with the windows open, I'm sure everyone around could hear (since it was very quiet at that time of the morning) BUT.....they endured 5 years of Schradieck, Sevcik, Mazas, Kreutzer, scales, arpeggios....etc.etc....not a single piece of 'music' ever left that room before school.

[Gray Violiner]

I was living in an apartment complex when I first started playing also. I normally kept the windows closed for OBVIOUS reasons, but if I opened them, the sound would drift out the window. The apartments across the parking lot acted as a nice rebounding ricochet for the sound. One night I'm practicing away with the window open and I hear a young couple walking past my window (upstairs apartment). I hear the guy say "what IS that????" The woman says, "I don't know! It sounds like it MIGHT be some kind of musical instrument....."

Well, at least in the past 8 1/2 years I've improved enough that I don't worry about serenading the neighbors in the subdevelopment I live in now.

[HoosierGirl]

I used to live in an apartment complex too. I was in a downstairs apartment and unfortunately sound tended to drift upstairs through the vents. One evening, just after I finished a practice session, I heard a knock on the door. I answered it and found three cops on my doorstep. Turns out my upstairs neighbor had called the police on me and complained about a loud stereo in my place.

I was not so pleased to see the officers, but I was incredibly flattered that my neighbor reported a loud stereo and not, say, a dying cow...

[Gray Violiner]

So did you ever give the upstairs neighbor a private concert after that?