To complain about the piano noise

[Noisedrivingmemad]

We have recently moved into a semi detached house. On our attached side are a couple aged about 60, and a couple of lodgers.
They are friendly people, dropped a card in when we moved, the woman has spoken to my DH a fair bit over the fence about gardening, not intrusive ,very nice, all good.
HOWEVER, she is a piano and violin teacher.
3 week days (mostly after school) she is teaching piano and violin and it is like. She. Is. In. The. Room.

I can just about handle the lessons, although the violin is pretty awful. My kids are fairly noisy after school so I kind of see it as fair game, and accept that being in a semi-detached house means we need to accept some noise. I just tolerate it, even though every dinner time it feels like we are accompanied by the god awful piano playing.
But even at the weekend she is playing (not teaching). She has been playing for the last 2 hours, I could kill her. I literally want to rip that piano out the wall. My kids were watching a film and I turned it up as loud as possible out of pure rage, but in the kitchen I can still hear it, tinkle tinkle fucking tinkle, the tunes go round and round in my head.
I think I might crack and throw myself off my own balcony. Sometimes I go to sleep dreaming of taking a big machete to her musical instruments or chopping her fingers off with my bread knife.

So what would you do? Should I say something?? Do I just live with it? Is it anti-social?

Help.

I don't think it's unreasonable to ask if she can move it to an external wall, but playing piano during the day is pretty tame when it comes to noise. You can't really ask her to stop.

Ask if she takes requestsbamd sing along badly...
Take the ndn piano and swap you for a howling dachsund any day op.

Most houses had them 🤣

My grandparents didn’t have an inside toilet let alone a piano!

I play the piano. It needs to be on an internal wall to keep an even temperature. Any large changes will cause it to go out of tune quicker. So never should it be backed onto an external wall or one with a radiator or hot water cylinder nearby. Or in the sun. This greatly limits where she can put the piano.

Also they are seriously heavy. Most people can’t shift or move it themselves with one of you on each side. Google says around 160-230kg for an upright.

The reason you hear a lot less of them now is because most of us non professionals have digital pianos. They are much quieter, can be silence with headphones and is not susceptible to humidity and temperature changes.

I am trying to explain it’s difficult to move it. That’s it.

The housing estate I live on is just over 100 years old and you can just about fit a sofa, one chair, a TV and a small cupboard in the living room.

If anyone wanted to play the piano, they certainly wouldn't be doing it in their house! Hence why so many local libraries/pubs had them.

We had a piano, played mainly by my DD who practised daily. My neighbour loved hearing her play and she wasn't particularly good. I think it would be very out of order to complain about this.

My great-grandmother was barely working class, more underclass. She had a piano in the 1920s with eight children in the house. A lot of cheap pianos were built and available to buy in cities back then.

YABU totally.

We have a piano, and found that carpet and underlay make a big difference to noise transmission.

You have my sympathies Op, I used to live next door to a 'musical' family. We fell out big time.

😂
I wish she would play songs I recognised, I wouldn't mind a few pop belters from time to time, it's all classical unfortunately.

Hardly antisocial to have to listen to a (presumably) accomplished pianist

I remeber trying to revise for my o levels and we had an accomplished pianist next door. What a nightmare, it drove me insane. And it would drive me insane now.

I really doubt that. My WC parents grew up in post-war Glasgow tenements. My mother lived in a single end (one room flat with her parents and 3 siblings) and my father in a room and kitchen (two room flat) with his parents and 4 siblings.

They didn't have the room to swing a cat even if they could have afforded the piano and their situation was fairly typical of their contemporaries at that time.

I think people should have digital pianos unless they live in a detached or fully sound-proofed house.

I don't think you are at all unreasonable. I would say something.

This kind of constant intrusive noise completely destroys your wellbeing.

Yanbu.

Is it on the shared wall.

Seems I'm going against the grain. But I don't think it's fair to run a business like this from a semi detached house.

The fact that it's her work is irrelevant. There are lots of jobs that we wouldn't dream of doing from home because it would be anti social.

I'd rather live attached to a piano than kids movies played at full volume.

Yabu I think. This is her livelihood and you should have done your due diligence before you exchanged. She was a piano teacher before you moved in. Perhaps the old owners deliberately kept it from you.

I suspect people who are saying you're unreasonable have never lived next door to neighbours with pianos, trombones, drumkits and the like.

Not true. She's running a business out of her hone which is connected with noise emissions and would probably need formal approval of some kind. And even private play can be officially restricted to certain times/number of hours.

OP I'd say you gave decent leverage to try to enter a friendly negotiation with her. She should kove that piano and/or soundproof the room.

Again this doesn't mean 'most homes had them' as a PP claims.

To add. A childhood friend of mine is a concert pianist. They ended up buying a 2-flat detached house in concert with friend's VERY difficult mum just to get to practice at home. Before that, it was shlep on over to the conservatory for any extended practice, or go stay with her parents in the suburb where they'd set up her grand piano. Professional music practice can be nerve-wracking to the neighbours - it's nothing like getting free concerts.

I know what I would say if a neighbour tried to control what I did in my own home! Like others have said unless it's at an anti social time then you have to put up with it or move.

And even private play can be officially restricted to certain times/number of hours.

Can it? I have never heard that. I was under the impression that noise complaints were reported as anti-social behaviour to (and dealt with by) the local council on a case by case basis: I can’t find these official times/hours you’re referring to.

I know that there are laws governing the volume of noise permitted between 11pm and 7 am but it doesn’t seem that the neighbour is playing during the night?

Could you soundproof the adjoining wall? When my dcs were teens they were learning piano, drums and cello. We had a digital piano and drum kit, but you can't turn the volume down on a cello. I didn't feel too bad about our neighbours as we kept to reasonable times, whilst they weren't averse to having noisy parties and doing DIY at anti-social hours. They told me one day they'd soundproofed their side of the party wall and it had made a tremendous difference.

We lived next to a family of teen pianists a few years ago and it was awful . The piano wasn’t on the shared wall and they played all evening . At times they would play in the early hours . We did complain and they soundproofed . That was only partially effective . One time my late father was staying and he put the music they were trying to play on the CD player really loudly 😂. Ultimately we extended and effectively stopped using the room adjoining the piano in the evenings .