After having the flu all weekend, I did not need any crap from anyone… Today I was busy trying to get the hang of my Doolin one-piece, and playing around with a tune from The Nightmare Before Christmas as well, so certainly my playing wasn’t even as okay as usual, but all the same… It pissed me off pretty badly to hear someone barking in the courtyard. I couldn’t make out the words but I am sufficiently self-conscious to think it could be about me. Sure enough, when I failed to stop on command (out of sheer cussedness in case it really WAS about me) I heard some terminally loud, passive-aggressive or even just plain aggressive male voice bark, “Who is doing that?” and more words to the effect that whoever it was should have stopped it when ordered to in the first place. Well, I most belligerently finished my song but lacked the conviction to take up another… the idea that I had someone in the complex childish enough to scream at my poor, feeble Doolin that I thought was so quiet, well, that poisoned any fun I could get from it and made me use too much air for that whistle anyway. And, well, I gotta live here and I didn’t want the creep to get a bead on me.
I just HATE that aggressive male type voice, grates on my nerves like a shrill woman using a grocery loudspeaker. Just makes me want to relieve him of his aorta. I’ll bet he was a member of the “spoiler club.” This refers to a small group of guys who occasionally collect on the street on the other side of our apartment. Why they bring all their cars and stop there I don’t know, like watching wildlife I don’t interfere with them. But these geniuses park by the red curb and even on the street across the danged driveway while they chat, and one of them has a spoiler built into his car, and the rest got cheesy-looking metal kit spoilers and fastened them to their cars. Anyway, that’s irrelevant but they annoy me so it pleases me to think it’s one of them. This is also because they are white males and a large portion of my neighbors are Spanish-speaking working stiffs with families, therefore do not fit the indignant “how dare you make noise in an apartment building” barking I heard.
I got one good thing out of this. I say the nice neighbors can play all the mariachis they want if they don’t mind my whistles. They can even play that polka hybrid stuff. I will, though, be playing on the opposite side of the apartment by the street. If the loudmouth has a problem hearing music on a public street, he’ll have to take it up with the city.
Thankfully that is not something I have happened across yet…though I am very beginner (and thus more likely to be told to shut up!
I am geting more hacked off with my flatmate playing very loud music all day everyday, but I think I ought to just deal with it if I dont want him telling me to shut up…
Anyway, why I wrote: Any chance of sending in the Nightmare before Christmas music you mentioned?
pretty please?
Stella
I was playing fiddle in the back room of my local pub a few months ago and someone sent the bartender in to say that it sounded like two cats fighting.
That threw me off for a few days, but then I shook it off. Dont let it get to you…its easy for some to cast stones at those who are endeavoring a challenging path to something worthwhile.
Of course, it could be worse…you could be playing the banjo!
Borrow a Drum set (don’t forget the crash cymbals) and wail away on that for a week or so, then give Mr. No Talent Bad Attitude a choice of what he’ll get to hear in the future: Drumset, or whistle. I suspect you’ll have no problems after that.
Loren
P.S. Now, if you decide you really like playing the drums after that, well, I happen to have a few Cymbals I’d be happy to sell you - and I promise you won’t find them anywhere cheaper!
Jeez, people complain when you play the whistle??? I’d better never move to the USA. I practice bagpipes at home and no-one has complained yet. I’m careful never to do it before 12pm or after 8pm, so frankly I don’t see how anyone would have much right to complain anyway unless they were working nightshifts. People are so intolerant these days.
If you think complaints can throw you off, wait till you get complimented!!
“I really liked the way you played that little run in the B part of tuneXYZ”
Then you spend the rest of your life trying to recreate that little run, until you give up the tune in disgust!
Without music, life would be an error. - F. Neitzche
[ This Message was edited by: DanD on 2002-09-16 18:01 ]
I am too self-conscious (sp?) to practice with the window open. I can’t practice at my best if I know people might be listening. I do a lot of wood-shedding, where I practice the same thing over and over and over, either because I haven’t gotten the hang of it, or just because it’s fun. I’ll play Drowsey Maggie many times over just because it’s fun. But practice to me is a private affair. I love performing, but practice is not perfoming. And I absolutely love to practice. My kids can sleep right through it. And my wife ignores me anyway, so there’s no problem, there. (She does read my posts, though. Hi Honey!) But if you are going to practice where the neighbors can hear it, then I hope you are improving!
I can play in front of other people if I’m not the only one playing. Once a friend and I played tunes in the park during a festival while his kids were on the playground, and once I played tunes with a friend while walking down a downtown street…in the rain! Both times I had a blast and wasn’t the least bit self conscious, even when I messed up.
But playing in public with no friends about? That’s still a bit odd for me. I have played over lunchtim a couple of times at work (there’s a pond on site with a walking path) but tend to fizzle out when someone comes within range. And I tried to play on campus at school last spring but always chickened out. I’m hoping that was due to my newbie status and that I will do better when I go back!
Paul’s got the right idea. Or, in a pinch, if you don’t have a set of GHBs handy,come to think of it , the best would be breaking in a NEW chanter reed, but anyway, a pipe practice chanter would be good too, since to it can be made to sound pretty awful and irritating..
After reading this post, I’m feeling lucky. My husband learned long ago to tune me out(even the GHB) and the dogs and cows just give me funny looks and go on about their business.
On 2002-09-16 00:58, Stella wrote:
Anyway, why I wrote: Any chance of sending in the Nightmare before Christmas music you mentioned?
pretty please? >
Stella
Well, here’s the trouble with that, is that I was trying to play it by ear. So there were such a lot of missed notes, you’d have thought I was playing on a slide whistle.
On 2002-09-16 13:05, Loren wrote:
Borrow a Drum set (don’t forget the crash cymbals) and wail away on that for a week or so, then give Mr. No Talent Bad Attitude a choice of what he’ll get to hear in the future: Drumset, or whistle. I suspect you’ll have no problems after that.
Well, I was considering getting my 11-month-old son a little drum, and his exuberant sister always grabs the interesting stuff from him and gives new meaning to the word LOUD… you’d think that would have gotten some complaints, but I’ve heard other kiddie xylophones…
On 2002-09-16 17:28, weepiper wrote:
Jeez, people complain when you play the whistle??? I’d better never move to the USA.
Well, if you can find an artists’ community, I’d think it might be more friendly to whistles… but surely every country has its supply of clueless jacka- um… jerks. Do you guys calls them jerks? Idiots, that’s fairly universal. Yeah, I know you were joking.
On 2002-09-16 19:32, Anna Martinez wrote:
What other people think of you is none of your business. (grin)
You know better than I do how much we wish they would keep it that way. At least mine was PASSIVE-aggressive… yesterday, anyway. My fear was that he might be the sort to go further and find out who was daring to defy his feeble roarings… seems silly now, of course that kind is all bark, isn’t he?
I will say that my husband doesn’t mind my playing and I’ve had satisfying compliments from small children. My own small ones are drawn to the sound of it. So I guess I came to think no one even noticed. But it wasn’t I had done much, 2 songs… I think the dude was either stewed to the eyebrows or “showing off” for someone (like a danged peacock) or just plain being an arbitrary bstrd.
Laughed pretty good at that cat skinning thing. I happen to have a brother-in-law who plays the bagpipes and has a chanter around someplace… I’ve always wanted to try it.
Thanks for this thread! Last year, two people moved into the flat beneath me. After about a week, every time I launched into my practice, I was treated to an hour of doof doof music. I spoke to them about it and they said that they did not mind my whistle, but the doof doof did not stop.
I have to admit that this made me so miserable that I had more or less stopped practising because I couldn’t compete with the doof doof and because I would hate to be making anyone else miserable. But classes start again next week, I have a brand new Low D and this thread has cheered me up no end! Thanks again.
On 2002-09-17 07:12, Linnhe wrote:
Thanks for this thread! Last year, two people moved into the flat beneath me. After about a week, every time I launched into my practice, I was treated to an hour of doof doof music. I spoke to them about it and they said that they did not mind my whistle, but the doof doof did not stop.
I have to admit that this made me so miserable that I had more or less stopped practising because I couldn’t compete with the doof doof and because I would hate to be making anyone else miserable. But classes start again next week, I have a brand new Low D and this thread has cheered me up no end! Thanks again.
Linnhe,
You could always try the whistle mute that was introduced on the forum.
The other evening I rolled up a piece of paper and stuck it in the one side of the windway on top of my whistle and practiced after everyone went to bed and no one said anything about me killing cats! Ha Ha. It really does work.
