Piano Playing Noise Daily from Neighbors
Recently bought an attached brick house and now we are going crazy on a daily basis listening to our neighbors learning how to play piano. The noise level in intolerable and they play right at the time when we come home. We tried to reason with them many many times, asking to move the piano…
Recently bought an attached brick house and now we are going crazy on a daily basis listening to our neighbors learning how to play piano. The noise level in intolerable and they play right at the time when we come home. We tried to reason with them many many times, asking to move the piano away from the common wall or to play at different times, to no avail. My husband gets soo upset that he called police once and it did not lead to anything. When can we do, our house is turning into a nightmare as we can’t even relax after difficult day at work. We are even considering selling. Any advice on how possibly to resolve this situation? The neighbors are very stubborn and are not willing to compromise even a little bit. Any advice will be appreciated.
Thank you!
After 8 years of being driven bananas by a piano teacher with students practicing scales and lousy playing and listening to the same notes over and over again EVERY AFTERNOON FOR HOURS not to mention concerts with performances going till 9-10 PM ( and we have small kids who could not sleep because of that) we gave up and moved. Tried everything from complaining to the HOA (illegal use of the apartment) to cops…..nothing helped. The HOA (her buddies) was making things up to fine us for excessive noise (even when we were not home)…..the lawsuit would have cost $10K and up and as always it takes time and patience…….at some point we were avoiding our home for days and weeks, but it seriously gets exhausting spending time outside and not to mention costly since you have to always pay for something…..instead of relaxing at home and preparing dinner and enjoying our home in the afternoon, after work and school, like other people!!!!
And those self absorbed parents who brought their kids there did not get the hint when we banged loudly out of desperation or played music loudly to try to let them know?????? I hope they all become deaf so they can not hear their kids play….AWFULL PEOPLE!!!!!!
So glad we moved. Feel sorry for the new owner but had to do it.
It could be fun for the person doing it but if you are on the other side of the wall and exposed to the loud repetitious noise for hours it will get to you.
YES YOU PIANO PEOPLE ARE LOUD AND ANNOYING!!!! So use mufflers or whatever it takes to contain your music to your place!!!!
So, BLAST THE VIOLIN but it will probably not help…..
Oh, by he way, we took the money that would be spend on lawyers and went on a wonderful Hawaiian vacation!!!!
I am in the same situation, and it drives me nuts! Especially since they’re really not good and would play the same section over and over again. and this is compounded by the fact that they have crappily insulated hard flooring as well. I dont understand why its fine to call the cops for loud ‘hell’ music but not piano playing? Personally i much prefer listening to some heavy metal over this horrible repetition. And i’m not some crazy punk who jus like that stuff either. I know i cant ban them from playing cos learning music is one of those things, but yea am seriouslt thingking of taking up the violin again and blast them with some of my horrible cat killing.
I am having the same if not worse experience with my neighbor living in an apartment. I am a student, my neighbor is a student.
For 1 piano session she typically plays scales for about 20-30 minutes per day. She plays studies(scales + HAMMERING CHORDS) for an additional 20-30 minutes. She plays classical music for 30 more minutes. She may play 1-3 piano sessions a day.
The scales tend to get quite aggravating because you hear the same notes over and over and over again for an extended period of time. My ladyfriend finds it even more aggravating as a more experienced piano player because she doesn’t play the scales right apparently.
The studies are the most annoying because it consists of the annoying scales plus the same chords being hammered like the keyboard of an office worker with a Blue screen of Death.
She plays classical music the least which tends to piss me off because at least theres a melody in it. On top of this she finds a place to stop in each song at least 5 times to repeat the same bar over and over again.
I like taking naps. I am quite grumpy when I get woken up when I don’t want to be.When she wakes me up with the scales and studies as she always does, the rest of the day I tend to be fuming. When I am trying to do work, I cannot do it while she is playing scales and studies. She is most likely a music student so asking her to practice less often would end up with nothing. I do feel like telling her she’s fairly talentless for how much she practices though.
I play PC games on a very competitive basis. If she’s allowed to practice the most annoying crap for hours @ ~80dB I could play with my 250 watt speakers, so she could hear the sounds of endless gunshots during the evening for hours. However I respect the fact that I’m living in an apartment and I wear headphones.
Maybe piano players could do the same and do something about the fact they produce some of the worst noise pollution besides civics without mufflers.
You can’t afford an electric piano and headphones? Get a different livelihood and don’t make someone else’s life worse because you aspire only to be a musician in an apartment.
Must say I am having the same experience as OP out on the West Coast in a townhouse condo. All day and into the evening. If it were only an hour, set time, each and every day, it would be much more tolerable; but to hear it in every room of the place at 10 am, 3pm , 6:15 and again at 8:10pm, is simply too much. It’s amazing how much this can put one on edge when trying to read, listen to one’s own soft music or have a conversation, especially when writing the mortgage check at the same time. Too bad that individual rights don’t also include noise intrusion and pollution like smoke or other things as the stress and life disruption can be horrific.
I can sympathize with OP, I lived in an apartment under a piano player years ago, and it was not just for an hour a day, but every night until 10 or 11 pm. It was so loud I could not watch TV, listen to music of my own choice or read a book. He refused to compromise on the hours, or do any soundproofing and I ended up moving for the sake of my sanity. (I was told by the landlord that the piano player was within his rights as long as he did not go past 11pm).
Hope soundproofing helps you, since the neighbor refuses to compromise (although I must say if it stays at the level of an hour in the early evening that’s not so bad) it’s either that or move. Hope you have found some resolution to this since you posted back in August.
Just read through this. Wondering how things have worked out? Can the original poster tell us the happy/sad ending to the piano playing drama? Also, curious about the last post: Did our new mother resolve her piano nightmare?
I am going through the exact same thing. The lady next door to me plays piano from 7.30am to 10pm at night. I have no idea when she actually eats and possibly her hands must be blistered from playing everyday!!!
I’m at a point where I just don’t know what to do. I play music to try and drown it out, but the piano is actually louder than the music!! You can actually hear the music in every room of the house, there is no escape. I am currently 7 months pregnant and the constant noise is really stressing me out in which should be a happy time.
If it was for just one hour a day, I’d be supportive, it’s do-able. But this is too much. We’ve complained but to no avail.
Should I have a lawyer draft a letter to her? Not really sure what to do next!
My husband and I both work but days I’ve been off sick, she’s played during those days too. She doesn’t work, she use to be a therapist and now just does this everyday. I wonder if she perhaps is teaching in there as nobody could play themselves for so long everyday surely?
We’ve put up for this for last 6 months, everytime we are home. I’m at breaking point, and dreading 4 days off for thanksgiving because I’ll have her everyday interrupting our quiet time and it will just ruin our holiday.
Hate to break it to you, but people have been complaining about pianos on the other side of the party wall in brownstone houses ever since they first became popular in the Victorian era. The music is undoubtedly loud, since the wall in your apartment is probably acting as a giant tympanium against the back of the upright piano. Since the kid’s just learning to play, the music is undoubtedly rife with wrong notes, bad tempos, and endless repetitions, which is undoubtedly annoying.
Historically, I only know of one successful solution that made both sides happy. Thomas Carlyle managed to butter up the ego of his nextdoor neighbor and she was so tickled that she agreed to adjust her practice time–temporarily. Whether you’re charismatic enough or have the proper opening for pulling this off is another story. Perhaps you could make them an apology gift in the form of a music book focused on quieter etudes and Chopin-esque pieces. This would at least nudge the child away from more bombastic pieces as they progress.
On a final note, I wouldn’t start a music war with your neighbors. That’s just going to turn it into a control issue (if it isn’t one already) and could potentially escalate the conflict. You’re already annoyed at them taking time from your life, so why turn this dispute into a new hobby? Perhaps “grin and bear it” is a more appropriate phrase for your situation than “ignore it.”
I’m sorry to tell you that there is not much you can do except:
Ignore it-
may be hard to do if you have sensitive hearing
Move out-
But you have no garantee that you won’t have the same problems again.
Build a wall-
Get political-
pass a law to limit the decibels, condos have it!
Get even-
give yourself a gift, buy a 200watt system