To think that playing your music out loud in public shouldn't be tolerated?

[Hopspinach]

Since I moved to London, I've noticed it's really common for people to play their music out loud in public. I've experienced this in hospital waiting rooms, when having a picnic by a river, in parks, on the bus, on residential streets... It just strikes me as hugely presumptuous to assume everyone wants to hear your music. Why can't people use headphones? What if I were to play my music loudly over the top of theirs? Why do people even do this? Music is highly subjective - you can't assume others will enjoy what you're listening to.

I've noticed it's normally tolerated by others, however, so am I the one who's being unreasonable here? Or is everyone just cursing in their head but we're too passive aggressive as a nation to actually say anything?

I absolutely hate it. I'm autistic and I find noise and smell pollution (over fragrancing everywhere) getting worse and worse now.

The other day as we were walking up a hill there was some woman descending playing shit music from her tinny phone speakers, my own fault for picking a popular one with easy access to a city I guess.

It seems to be worse in the UK than Europe, we've got a campervan and the most I've encountered in Europe is campers playing accoustic guitar at sociable times, nothing amplified.

Anyone who does this should take a long walk off a short pier. Ditto parents who let their kids play devices out loud.

Couldn't care less really - but then I am a lot more chilled than many a MN poster, who gets the rage, can't tolerate this/that/the other etc. I also can filter out anything I don't want to hear.

Should be illegal, IMO, particularly in gardens. I’m thinking of a young family near us who play music very loudly in the summer. They’re impacting approximately 45 other houses due to the configuration of their garden-think corner, been carved out of the house next door, I think.

Unsurprisingly, the next door neighbour is selling up, but it’s taking an unusually long time despite being very cheap for the area.

In the summer, I don’t want to hear someone else’s music, I find it incredibly anti-social.

I’ve recently spent time in hospital and clearly had the reputation as the grumpy bitch in bed 4 as no one else in the bay saw the remotest problem with incessant FaceTime calls at full volume -literally half way to a shout. There’s no need-I used a Bluetooth headphone and murmured my end of necessary conversations but had to resort to playing music through my headphone to stand any chance of sleep.
I wish the hospital trust would require headphones for music AND conversations-I reckon people would get better faster in peace.

Playing music out loud in the countryside reminds me of Limmy’s sketch about encountering people dropping litter when you go for a walk:

My friends and I were having this conversation the other day as one of them was on a long journey with someone nearby planning music v loud through a phone. It's v rude and antisocial, but I think many people don't say anything for fear of confrontation.

I find it really annoying too.

If someone's in their own garden and I can hear some music drifting quietly over, fair enough - they're on their own property and I don't expect to hear zero noise from other people's homes. But if it's a park or on a beach or on public transport or whatever, it drives me mad. It's monopolising a shared public space as if it belongs to them and nobody else matters. Peak selfishness.

It's not just a London thing, though - it happens everywhere really. I

*playing, not planning...

Yeah it bothers me a lot but I also assume that anyone who either plays music or has loud repetitive conversations in public is thick and aggressive so I don't say anything. I do remember a woman opposite me on a train loudly telling a sequence of friends the same story about the horrors of her boyfriend, one after the other. And another who left about 15 voice notes for apparently the same friend in the space of half an hour.

I'm autistic and have to use public transport. I find the noise excruciating, especially when I can still hear it through my ear plugs. I'm not adverse to asking them to turn it off. I say it clearly so everyone else hears and rarely get any bite back.

Oh, I have found my people! Noise that I can’t get away from makes me anxious.
Playing devices out loud on public transport, restaurants, beaches and on airplanes is so selfish. I do understand why people like to listen to mosaic in their gardens but I don’t want to. I want to hear the birds singing and enjoy some peace and quiet, not be subjected to someone else’s music.
On that note, I also don’t understand why all hotels feel the need to blast club music by the pool. Regardless if you choose to travel during the off-season to a quiet, non-trendy hotel in the middle of nowhere. Just why?
Is there no way that all the people that like peace and quiet can just live in one community and everyone who isn’t bothered by it can live in another? Would lead to so many less neighbour disputes.

@FeelinSpendy - I’ve often fantasised about living in a community of like-minded people. Seems like so much neighbour angst could be sorted out this way. Let those who think whatever you do in your own house of garden is up to you live with each other and those of us who are happy to live with some rules (even if it means we don’t always get what we personally want) live together.

Re the hotel pools, many years ago I went to a lovely agriturismo in central Sicily. It was the kind of place you only go to because you wanted peace and calm because there wasn’t much around except gorgeous scenery. Yet at the pool area they were blasting out pop hits. I felt like a bit of a killjoy, but it was the off-season and only me at the pool so I asked them to turn it off. Know your audience!

Utterly agree. I find it weirdly aggressive. Yes music on the beach is fucking annoying.

Some families are hideously loud even without music. Never forget a few years ago at a picnic spot in Devon prob about 8 normal families I was not aware of any of them. Then knob family arrive. Parents scream and shout kids scream and shout fuss shout fuss yell. Watched as all the other normal families quietly packed up and left. Vile.

It's not just music on trains that's inconsiderate, it's telephone conversations.
There are the totally unnecessary ones (I'm on the train, we're just passing Peterborough), the ones to the office, in loud voices, that actually mean, "Everyone in earshot, listen to how important I am."

I got trapped on a train with a group of mums on a jolly - fair enough. Until one decided this was the time to tackle the fact that one of the other woman’s teen Dd was bullying her teen Dd. The cringe!

I was out for a walk with my son the other day. A man was riding his bike with a speaker attached and music blaring! Super antisocial.

Yeah, people who do it are inconsiderate selfish assholes.
And their music is always shitty too.

@Newuser82

I was out for a walk with my son the other day. A man was riding his bike with a speaker attached and music blaring! Super antisocial.

There’s a man near me who cycles around playing reggae music from speakers. Like many things, this is charmingly eccentric when one person does it but would be intolerable if it became widespread. And I will admit that reggae is infinitely more acceptable to me than the genres usually favoured by people who inflict their noise on you.

That’s London for you! I lived in ground floor flat for 10 years neighbours above played music every day all day long especially in the summer then I’d go out to the park same there etc it’s definitely a London thing as I’ve moved to Ireland and we don’t get it here except for the teenagers but it’s rare

Depends where it is but mostly doesn't bother me. Me and friends often have music playing in a park we go to play frisbee/slack-line in. The same group of people would never play music at an actual beauty spot or somewhere in nature but an East London park isn't really a quiet spot anyway

Hearing other people having fun doesn't trigger me in the same way it does some people

Outdoors I really like it most of the time. Sometimes it’s not so great - if you’re settled somewhere and someone stops nearby with music you don’t like, for instance, or if it’s just too damn loud. But I love someone rolling past me in a car with the windows down and suddenly getting an earful of their favorite mix.

Indoors or on public transport it’s awful and offenders should be shot.

After years of listening to my neighbours screaming (and I mean screaming and shrieking, proper banshee style) at her kids, weeks and weeks and weeks of building works at unsociable times (workmen at7am on Easter Monday whilst they were away, no courtesy warning or apologies over the multiple workman coming and going and damage to my car)I ordered a wonderful quality music system. During lockdown We played it loudly to drown out her shrieking. I'm expecting them to move soon. We cannot hear her when this is on but we shouldn't have to listen to it, it's horrible to hear the way she speaks to her children. No other neighbours were harmed in the making of this.

@SquirrelG

Couldn't care less really - but then I am a lot more chilled than many a MN poster, who gets the rage, can't tolerate this/that/the other etc. I also can filter out anything I don't want to hear.

I wish I was more Zen like you.

Surely the opposite is that screaming toddlers should be banned to and made to leave wherever they are having a tantrum immediately so the rest of us can live in peace?