A pennywhistle for your thoughts
September 23rd, 2009 Posted in classical music
I semi-spurofthemomently bought one of the badboys on the left this last weekend. It is loud. What I failed to appreciate while daydreaming off in a land of little Irish lullabies, is that you have to blow like nuts to play to thing properly. The second octave is produced using the next highest up resonance frequency, which in non-science nerd terminology means you have to push air down the thing like you’re manually inflating an automobile tire.
I’d be totally fine with that — and actually, really enjoy tooting the hell out of the flute — except that we have upstairs and downstairs neighbors. I reckon there can only be a few more listens to me trying to hit a high D on the thing before we get angry footsteps clomping down the stairwell. If only we had a fully detached apartment. Or a really soundproof, and large, cardboard box.
But I’m just a fakey, below-10-buck “musician”. What do real musicians do when they live in an apartment? Annoy the neighbors? Use practice rooms instead? In an age of clicking on the windows taskbar to turn the sound off, it’s a bit unnerving to be interacting with a device that doesn’t have a mute button.
Maybe they’ll add it in the next software patch…
September 28th, 2009 at 2:29 am
Admittedly not the same instrument, but James Galway wrote somewhere that he attributed his sweet tone to the fact that during his student days, practising in an apartment, he had to learn to play very softly.
A flute-playing friend of mine at uni used to practise in her parked car on Sundays. (She shared a house with other music students and the group had declared Sunday a practice-free day.) Campus and venue practice rooms are good for serious students, because they minimise distractions and help maintain focus, but not everyone has access to those.
My own experience – practising flute and piano in apartments – suggests that most people find it pleasant rather than annoying, or barely notice and seem puzzled when you ask if they’ve been bothered by it. Does depend on the building, of course, and practising in a room with carpet/rugs helps a lot.
My advice? Go for it. Make the sweetest, most accomplished sound you can, play attractive music, confine your efforts to reasonable hours of the day (9am to 6pm? your mileage may vary) and adjust accordingly when/if the complaints ever come.
October 1st, 2009 at 11:09 pm
Yes, they either annoy the neighbors or find somewhere else to practice. Or they do what I do: play classical guitar. You’re lucky if you can hear yourself play it, if there’s the slightest other noise around.
October 1st, 2009 at 11:28 pm
Hi guys!
You know… I sort of like the idea of taking it out to the car and blowing the crap out of it. I think perhaps I care way too much about disturbing people…. that high D though….
October 25th, 2009 at 1:52 pm
Yeah I would avoid the high D. Shouldn’t be too difficult. I know that occasionally I’ll practice my flute and piccolo in my house as opposed to the practice rooms at school. Every once in a while someone will come banging on the door and that is when my house mate and I duck out of view from all windows and I’m done practicing for a while. (we live in kind of a rough neighborhood). Most of the time its a non issue though.