To not stop DD playing her French Horn just because it annoys my neighbour

[LydiaBennetsUglyBonnet]

Disclaimer: There was no one more unhappy than me when, last year after DD got to pick an instrument to play at school, she picked the bloody French Horn and not something more reasonable 😂 but sometimes life throws us a child with a penchant for annoying instruments

Anyway. 9yo DD plays French horn. I spend a small fortune keeping her in peripatetic 1-2-1 lessons because she’s good. She’s got a concert in the local cathedral next month and is playing 2 Christmas songs as part of a brass group and one solo. She’s bricking it bless her. We live in an end terrace. Her room is the one at the end side of the end (ie furthest away from neighbours) so she practises in there. 30 minutes after school and then an hour on Saturdays and Sundays. Wouldn’t usually practise so much but this concert means a lot to her and she wants to do well

Anyway she was playing at 1pm today for an hour and the neighbour came banging on the door. Said he’s sick of it, it’s every day and disturbing his lie-in! I said sorry but she’s got a concert to practice for it won’t be forever. He then moaned because when we first moved in we asked him to stop playing his music at full blast (Taylor swift mainly, as if life isn’t hard enough). But he was playing it from 5pm-9pm, in his bedroom which shares a wall with my 5yo! Which he has done again tonight.

it can’t be that loud, it can barely be heard from the far room (DS’s). But WIBU to carry on as normal? It’s not unsociable hours, and it’s only for another 2 weeks.

It’s reasonable but he now gets to play Taylor swift on repeat. Such is life

Legally yes I think so but decent humans don’t blast their music at 9pm right next to a party wall (his stereo or Alexa or whatever he has is literally against our party wall).

Apparently not. They are where I live, but not in this particular terrace.

Unsociable hours there start at 6:00pm if you live next to neighbours who have chosen to locate their child next to a party wall. 🙄

I admire your Dds dedication! I wouldn’t mind if you were my neighbour. But then you’d have to listen to my teen practising his trumpet once in a blue moon interspersed with FUUUUCK! Lol. I wish my kids were as diligent at their music as yours!

Nope. It’s a common misconception when it comes to noise.

Just google your local council playing an instrument and noise disturbance.

One of the things they suggest to do first is come to an agreement with the neighbours. If no agreement can be made then there is an option to make a complaint.

@prawncocktailwithdill I have actually been amusing myself with this thread, but c'mon now, it's getting a bit silly with accusations of bullying don't you think?

OP and neighbour are entitled to ask things of each other. Note that neighbour stopped playing his music until OP became so intransigent. It's not bullying, it's simply hypocritical expecting neighbour to be a better man when Op won't bend in return.

@MilkshakesBringAllTheCoosToTheYard how do you suggest I ‘bend’ to make a noise that is already barely audible to neighbour? I say barely audible because it’s obviously not louder than what I hear in DS’s room, which is not a lot, it’s obviously just something he can hear that grates on him, such is the noise of a brass instrument.

That's true. You can report noise happening during the day. We reported pop music, radio noise from a neighbour when I lived in a shared student house. That was happening during the day, outside and in the house.

Same with dog barking and other, similar noise.

@Roundandnour I don’t need to, I know what the deal is – it was a response to OP talking about there being “unsociable hours”, and pointing out that night-time noise is defined as 11-7, which doesn’t fit what the neighbour is doing. Or what her daughter is doing.

Stop making that noise on a daily basis?

I will soon. But in 2 weeks. It’s not a long time to wait.

How do I suggest you bend? Long story short, by not doing the same thing at the same time every single day, maybe?

Two weeks of Taylor Swift it is, then! It’s not a long time to wait.

OK, I’ll get her to play Sweet Caroline at 7pm then instead of Deck the Halls at 4pm.

Great advice, cheers!

Welcome! Your neighbour will be grateful for evermore, I'm sure.

No she can’t play Evermore from Beauty & the Beast yet, but I might get her to take requests from now on.

You have no idea how it sounds in your neighbours house.

It may actually be louder than you think.

You keep going on about him playing the radio when you first moved in, but if he has stopped doing it, you need to let it go.

Your daughter hasn't stopped him having to listen to learner on a wind instrument for too long every day.

It's all very well you saying 'but it's only for another 2 weeks', but what about the next thing she wants to rehearse for, or the one after that?

This is a never ending misery for your neighbour & an hour feels like forever in hell listening to an unwanted, unpleasant noise.
Every day, hearing it go on & on knowing that it will happen all over again & you'll never get even one day off must be hell for your neighbour.

Either pay to properly soundproof her room, or pay for rehearsal space elsewhere.

Half an hour a day (hour at weekends) is a fairly normal amount of practice time for someone who plays an instrument. My dad used to play the violin for far longer each day. It's very different to 4 hours worth of loud music against a shared wall. That said, coming to an agreement is the best course of action if possible as neighbour disputes are awful to live with.

Tell her to shove some socks in the bell of the horn for the time being. It should muffle the sound for the time being. A mute doesn’t affect the quality of tone produced, it just produces a quieter sound. Everyone with a wind instrument really should have one. Some pieces actually require the use of a mute in parts of the performance.

www.notestem.com/blog/french-horn-mute/

You can always check the decibels levels of both your DD and your neighbour, there's a phone app.

“Take up the Tuba instead “

I vote for a mute ( mother of a trumpet player here)

Is that where the term “ Put a sock in it” came from?
Maybe from the Army, being woken by a reveille?

Ah ha! I wondered how long it would be before we got a Flanders and Swann reference!