Terraced house next to an old lady who complaint about our piano playing

[Greenleave]

I have asked on the music thread although was also hoping for a wider mumsnet readers for a advice please. We had a complaint from our (lovely) old neighbor in the past when we played piano around 7.30pm since then we have never played the piano(with a sound) after 7pm(she is a nice old lady living on her own). We had another complaint today at 5.30pm that we are not considerate and "need to respect the others" and "the wall is really thin" and she cant stand the piano noise. I was told that our 9 yrs old has been playing 30mins or something in the afternoon. Is it too much? Does it mean we are not allowed to play at all. We are only home 3 afternoon a week, should I ask her if these 3 afternoons for 30mins is reasonable. We live in a terraced(although not too small) and the other neighbors have never complaint. We play some on Sundays only as we are packed with activities on Saturdays, so 30 mins 3 days a week and 1hour Sunday. What happens if she still doesnt want it(impression is she knows we have silent piano and she said we should always be on silent however we were advised by our teacher to listen to the real sound is better for her practice - the piano is an U3S-silent

OP, WHERE IS THE PIANO?? IS IT ON THE SHARED WALL??

Sorry for shouting...

Oops, sorry, cross-posted.

She is being U. 3 x 30 mins per week is not long to play the piano, and it sounds like you're out a lot of the rest of the time.

Could you have her round for coffee one day if she's lonely? Is she complaining about the piano so that she has an excuse to talk to you?

I don't understand why anyone would complain about a piano being played.

Some people just like to moan. She probably comes round because she is lonely and can't think of a better excuse.

Could you give her a timetable of when the piano will be played, so she can arrange to be out of the house?

It will be echoing massively through the chimney.
Put a duvet between the piano and the wall.

I'd be telling her to sod off

So would I. Have got an elderly viper as a neighbour myself who overplays the victim yet is about as far removed from sweet little old lady as it's possible to get

Yes agree that it will be echoing around the chimney. You either need to move it or insulate the chimney better

I don't understand why anyone would complain about a piano being played.

I play piano and I can. When learning you have to repeat a lot of music, scales etc. It can be really annoying to hear the same thing over and over again.

Maybe in the week your DC can use headphones and at the weekend session on a Sunday which are an hour she can not. That way its just one hour a week the old lady can actually hear it?

Our neighbours have a piano which their children play on, usually afternoons/early evenings. I think it is up against our party wall as it's surprisingly loud, it's only irritating as they play badly! I've taken to putting the radio on - Kerrang is good for blocking out the noise. I wouldn't complain to them though as hopefully they will improve eventually with practice! You are not playing during anti social hours and you cannot expect silence in a terrace house.

It sounds to me like yours is an old (Victorian/Edwardian) terraced house. These houses often had either chimneys that connected up above the fireplace height or only a thin separation between the two. It may be that the sound is being amplified by the chimney into her house. Can't you try and rearrange the room to move it to an internal non-connecting wall. May well solve the problem. If you don't want to simply because it suits you to have it where you've put it then you are being a bit unreasonable.

Ouch. The covered fire place will be only covered by a very thin wall, same on her side. Sound will probably be echoing up the chimney. Likely to be the worst possible location!

YANBU. Your neighbour needs to be more tolerant living in a terraced house.

Yes. The chimney breast is the noisiest place to put it.
I know pianos are difficult to move but anywhere else would be quieter.
Also hearing someone play well is fine but children practicing is torture. Unless they are really good.

Can it really not be moved to a non- party wall anywhere in the house? What's the problem if it isn't a particularly small terrace?

Um. Yes. The chimney might be making it far louder that you think.

That said your times of day and length of time playing mean that she is being very unreasonable.

Yes we are not in during the week(both myself and my husband do long hours) and our 9yrs old often has her headphone on in the evening if she needs to practise. I dont have a very enthusiastic one yet(just finished grade 5 and now only plays for fun with once a week lesson), she plays in the 3 afternoons that she are home after school. She plays violin however in the play room. Looked every where in the house today and dont find any where it could be moved at all. I am upset to the fact that she knows I will be bothered alot when she complains. We do have a nice and close relationship to all our neighbor(brought her biscuits from pur holiday 3 weeks ago). And my daughter was worried and upset tonight as she said "you are not being considerate, the piano playing is really doing my head in" in an angry and heavy voice. I tried to take my neighbor's side by reminding my daughter how nice our neighbor lady has been, she is old and its a rainy day, however at the sametime I feel its unfair to put my daughter off with her volunteered practice which only just happened recently.

The amount your daughter is practising is sod all enough for your neighbour to complain. And no you shouldn't have to do it in silence. If she doesn't like it she can put the radio on while the piano is being played.

My old neighbours used to play a cello, trombone and some other instrument in a very small terraced house. Usually the same tune repeatedly, starting at 7pm the DCs bedtime and often playing at 9pm. Got on my tits but I didn't say anything as it wasn't really excessively noisy but I am very noise intolerant.

I agree with the above posters- chimney wall likely to be worst place for sound to travel! I'm sure you can rearrange your furniture. I'm expect your daughter can't practice properly anyway thinking that it's going to annoy the neighbour. You have a good piano but living in a terraced house you might be better off buying a really good digital piano with headphones which is better for the sound the player hears than the practice pedal which your current piano has and has the advantage that no one else will be able to hear anything! = happy neighbour

You have to move the piano, the chimney is the worst possible place and the noise will be horrible. Yes she should be able to practice but find somewhere else for the piano.

Half an hour at a time is all I can stand my own family practising: I think a whole hour would drive me round the bend! (Various instruments as well as piano. What fun)
Could you give her specific times or a guarantee it won't go over 30 mins? She probably gets stressed when the piano practise starts as she has no idea for how long she has to endure it.
And as others have said, why can't you move it away from the party wall?

Unfortunately I have made fitted units book cases every where on the wall, its no other place to put the piano in, its on glue to the wall either(about 5 away). We did take her complaint the first time very seriouly and never played in the evening after.

The chimney will really make the sound of the piano echo, why can't you move it to an interior wall instead?

Can't you put it in the playroom?

OP, go to your neighbour and ask her if you can come in while your daughter plays. If noise is loud, move the piano, if noise is weak, talk to neighboor about getting noise cancelling headphones or earplugs.
We used to have neighboors playing the piano and yes it was loud and would fill up our whole house. It wasn't very often thankfully as they used to play it on the Sunday morning and wake me up.

Fireplace is the worst place. In our old terraced house I could hear the conversation clearly in next door's room if I stood next to the fireplace.

YANBU to play the piano in your house at 5:30, it is a reasonable time and reasonable noise, and living in a terrace means you have to accept that you will hear other people's living noise. I live in a mid-terrace and often hear noises from the neighbours, but unless it's stupidly early or late, I just accept it as a condition of life in a terraced house.

Having said that, whilst you have no obligation to do anything, now you know it is annoying her it would be neighbourly to make an effort to dampen the noise travelling through as much as possible - put egg cartons or other noise dampening material between the piano and the wall etc

Could you also perhaps get your daughter to use headphones sometimes too, even if it's just that you agree a compromise that some proportion of the practice time she will use the headphones and the rest of the time she will just play normally? If she's working on one or two songs repeatedly it can get irritating to listen to over and over again, as I have experienced when living with a music student who would play the same 5 minute piece over and over again until someone else in the house invariably had enough and told him to play something else or STFU.