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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

About elderly neighbours and my daughter’s piano

376 replies

user1499173618 · 17/05/2018 15:34

My DD is practising for her Grade 4 piano exam, which is due to take in June. We live on the second floor of a very nice apartment building of six apartments. We are the only occupants with a school aged child living at home. DD is very quiet and polite.

Our neighbours on the fourth and fifth floors have complained about DD’s piano playing and asked whether she could wear a headset and use the electronic keyboard. While I understand that they would prefer not to hear the piano at all, DD only plays for 30’ or so a day, apart from on Friday afternoons when her piano teacher gives her an hour’s lesson.

TBH I am quite hurt! DD is beautifully behaved and we work hard to keep her usefully occupied. I would have appreciated a more supportive set of neighbours! AIBU?

OP posts:
CosyLulu · 19/05/2018 11:40

boredretiree I think the OP meant that it was only her elderly neighbours who minded the noise not only elderly people worldwide. Generally I’d have thought the sound of and thought of a young person learning an instrument would be approved of by older generations? Certainly the older people in my family. They are much more disapproving of mobile phone use, gaming etc. Anyway, I guess everyone is different.

CosyLulu · 19/05/2018 12:31

ralfeesmum it could be worse - it could be dd and some of her gaming friends shouting, screaming and swearing at the computer until the early hours of the morning! Give me Three Blind Mice any day. But at Grade IV piano, the music will be really quite beautiful - dd's certainly was.

scottishdiem · 19/05/2018 12:57

Some older people like to complain. It is, often, their sole reason for continued existence. Like Victor Meldrew is some kind of god and One Food in the Grave was an instruction series.

For 30 mins a day with a lesson on a Friday afternoon I would find some way of making it louder if they are complaining. I mean really.

Mind you , I am from Scotland and grew up with a couple of neighbours learning and practising bagpipes (part of local marching band). Piano would be prefereable. But even then, there was always an older neighbour confusing the silence of nighttime during the blitz as some kind of way to live all the time. Its so annoying.

We living in societies were noise happens. Some if can be unsocial and disturbing. Playing the instrument of Beethovens Moonlight Sonata or Coldplays Clocks is neither.

Op - tell your neighbour that nothing can be done and they need to shut the fuck up.

BeyondThePage · 19/05/2018 13:03

there is a massive difference between "practise for exam" and "playing the piano"

Practise for exam involves endless repetition.

NOT of whole pieces, of small segments with which you are having difficulty - so often the same wrong notes a few times before getting them right. 4 to 10 bars of the middle of a piece of music played 5 times in a row, followed by some scales - again, usually the tricky turn, all on the mind-numbingly dull tick tick tick of the metronome, followed by some sight reading - slow and stumbling at first, play the same little piece a few times to see where the stumbling blocks are etc.

Practise makes perfect as they say. (not playing... practise)

Dungeondragon15 · 19/05/2018 13:06

Does research support your views? There is lots of research to back up what I said. What is wrong with giving consideration to older people? Life is very difficult when you get old. contrary to what younger people think.

A 10 year old study of MRI of 12 older people does not count as good evidence. I'm not actually a "younger" person so don't really need a lesson on "life being very difficult as you get older" Life certainly does get more difficult in some respects but that has nothing to do with this issue.

CosyLulu · 19/05/2018 13:08

BeyondThePage so what? It's still not exactly torture is it? And if they could hear the sound of a metronome coming into in their flat then I would imagine the OP wouldn't even be able to have a ticking clock in her flat!

It's 30 mins a day in her own home at a totally reasonable time of the day.

BeyondThePage · 19/05/2018 13:32

CosyLulu - 2 kids to Grade 8 and 9 years of it - yes it is torture sometimes.

CosyLulu · 19/05/2018 13:39

BeyondThePage Not really, not in comparison to many other things.

I play myself, saw Dd to grade 6 and I work part time as a piano teacher. Kids come to my flat for lessons 3 afternoons a week, 3-7pm, and not a single neighbour has ever said a word. In the world of anti-social noise, it's small fry especially in the OP's case.

ScipioAfricanus · 19/05/2018 16:24

If it’s even at a prearranged time (or could be) then the neighbours can arrange to be out then, or to put in a film with headphones in another room if they can’t bear it.

30 mins ish per day is well within the bounds of reasonable and while the scales and repetition may be annoying, they will not be a cacophony. I absolutely believe in being considerate to neighbours, and to older people, but if they cannot come with that level and type of noise once a day I think they are the ones who should be moving into a detached house in the country (or at least perhaps a retirement village or complex where everyone is quiet).

I don’t like electric pianos at all although needs must for some people. If I was practising for an hour a day, for example, at a time people were wanting to wind down in the evening, that would perhaps start to merit trying to use the headphones more often.

I

Crazyunicornlady · 20/05/2018 09:11

The neighbours have a right not to be disturbed by repetitive practice and the OP could help by turning down the volume or insisting her DD wears headphones.

I’d be concerned if my child stopped practicing an instrument just because they couldn’t get lavished with praise each time they did so. That shows the love is not for the music but for the attention. I think DD sounds a little spoilt to be honest!

Adnerb95 · 20/05/2018 10:11

30 mins per day at reasonable hours? It's a massive YANBU.

Adnerb95 · 20/05/2018 10:15

As for chopsticks and three blind mice ralfees the OP clearly states this is for a grade 4 exam!

They must have made grade 4 a whole lot easier since I took it Smile

Original poster
user1499173618 · 20/05/2018 10:34

I’ve never heard DD play Chopsticks or Thrre Blind Mice. And being listened to isn’t so much about being lavished with praise as about receding the necessary constructive criticism in order to improve.

OP posts:
Original poster
user1499173618 · 20/05/2018 10:34

Receiving

OP posts:
Snewname · 20/05/2018 10:38

You be a responsible parent and tell her to practice for five minutes on her own with headphones or with the volume low, then you listen and repeat.
My kids would like to do lots of things. I don't always let them. I'd also like to do lots of things; I don't always do them.

Also they aren't hearing what you are. To them grade 4 won't be lovely because they haven't got the rose coloured spectacles on that you have, and anyway what they hear will be muffled and only certain notes will be heard which is annoying in itself.

I'd love to have music playing in my garden when I'm out there. I don't because I don't want to piss the neighbors off. I would hate it if I had to hear others too. Even if I liked the actual song, it wouldn't sound right at that distance and would just be a racket.
It's called empathy.

CosyLulu · 20/05/2018 15:36

OP - I think you're fighting a losing battle here with people who obviously have silent children and silent existences. I am absolutely speechless that anybody could consider your dd's piano practise to be offensive, a sign that she's desperate for attention or that she's spoilt!

What the hell do all these silent living people do when they have teenagers???

IrmaFayLear · 20/05/2018 15:46

Absolutely, CosyLulu. What a bunch of intolerant miseries on this thread. Perhaps it’s the fact that it’s a piano that’s pissing them off. Poncey middle-class instrument. Shouldn’t be allowed.

CosyLulu · 20/05/2018 15:56

IrmaFayLear it's like the Twilight Zone. Truly bizarre. Of all the things in the world that somebody could complain about ...

I think the old miseries should lodge their complaint with the noise control authorities and see how rapidly they get laughed out of the room. They are used to dealing with real offensive noise.

Carycach100 · 20/05/2018 15:58

I don't think 30 minutes a day is unreasonable.A piano definitely is not a poncey instrument.

ChocolateDoll · 20/05/2018 16:14

Oh tell them to piss off and buy a detached house if they are so bothered.

The noise of other people living their lives comes with the territory in an apartment.

CosyLulu · 20/05/2018 16:17

ChocolateDoll couldn't agree more.

Sreberko · 20/05/2018 16:33

I live in flat on the 3rd floor and regularly hear one of the neighbors from ground floor practicing piano. As it is during the day i'm not really bothered by it, your neighbors are BVU.

GallicosCats · 20/05/2018 16:42

I think the old miseries should lodge their complaint with the noise control authorities and see how rapidly they get laughed out of the room. They are used to dealing withrealoffensive noise.

This. I was going to suggest Environmental Health, so the miserable gits could get smartly put in their place. Swiftly followed by a countering complaint of harassment.

Onceuponatimethen · 20/05/2018 16:55

So glad it’s not just me!

30 minutes piano a day is no more annoying than hearing a neighbour sneezing/their phone ring

bastardkitty · 20/05/2018 18:38

The neighbours have a right not to be disturbed by repetitive practice and the OP could help by turning down the volume or insisting her DD wears headphones.

No, they don't and Environmental Health will tell them exactly that.