Did your parents, family, kids, friends, ever complain you played too loud?

[ManyMartinMan]

No. Surprisingly. However, we used to move around a bit as my dad was also a musician. They let me, as a young high-schooler keep my drums with me and set them up in whatever Holiday Inn we were staying at. I would practice every afternoon up until the time the management came to tell me the complaints were coming in. Then I would stop until the next afternoon. My mom, proper singer, would always correct my vocals - "hold that note longer"..... That was back in the 70's. I don't remember being told I was too loud until about 3 years ago while at a director friend's house in Beverly Hills. I was running some ides by him for a film he was working on and he told me to quiet down as I was going to bother the people upstairs.......... So not much as a kid but as an adult.

[Toby Walker]

Originally Posted by Pitar

No. But, maybe that's because they never (routinely or normally) hear me play loud.

I tend to show my heels to loud music. It's unnecessary to the art. Partying? That's different. All manner of extravagance gets a kitchen pass in that realm of the mind but you won't find me there.

A thought too far on the question, maybe? No. Music is not universal, and as much as we pretend it is with a library of great expressive rhetorical statements claiming it to be true, we also know the irony man tends to eschew when making such great claims.

Skakespeare (or pseudepigraphs) is said to have cited it as soothing to the savage breast, though I highly doubt he ever got an earful the likes of a single guitar and amplifier. I play amplified but the volume and gain are sitting just above the lowest levels. I just like the nylon string sound over the steel string sound and slightly amplified brings a whole new voice to it. But, it doesn't need to be loud outside of a venue.

I liken loud to an epiphany about big things. They're not necessarily better because they're bigger.

I'll bet you must've hated Charlie Christian as well. Before him, nobody could even hear what the guitar player in a big band was doing. By amplifying his guitar - and playing fairly loudly in order to be heard over all those horns and the drums - Christian reinvented the role of a guitar in Jazz, primarily because his revolutionary single-note soloing could now be heard!

Loud music doesn't always equate to bad music, but to each his own.

[Bob Womack]

My parents used to ask me to turn down and I got some push-back in the dorm at college. The most interesting situation I faced was when I went to jam with a friend at the old fraternity row at the University of Tennessee. His frat house was on the corner of Melrose Ave. and Melrose Place, right across the road from Hess Hall, a huge, eight-floor residence complex colloquially referred to as "the Zoo." I learned about the legendary raucous atmosphere of the Zoo the hard way: Once when taking a short-cut through the courtyard of the building, I was hailed from a fifth-floor window. I looked up just in time to receive a cup full of soft drink in the face. At the time of my guitar incident, the Zoo was in the middle of a protest against the university because the university imposed no-alcohol rules at the school but allowed alcohol in corporate sky boxes at Neyland stadium to please the corporate clients. The protest involved six-foot-high stacks of cases of beer in all of the elevator lobbies and loud beer parties every weekend.

I went over with my amp on a Saturday and we fired up at about nine at night. The Zoo was alive with the typical racket that gave it its name. By about ten we had police knocking on the door. An inmate at the Zoo had protested that we were too loud for them to sleep and the police asked that we cease and desist from our racket. They were polite and friendly but firm and we obliged them. As I loaded out my gear, across at the Zoo, the raucous animal noises resounded from eight floors of partying and revelry mocked the charge from the complainant.

Bob

[MikeBmusic]

My first high school band used to practice in the basement of our rhythm guitarist's house. His father would flash the light (using the switch at the top of the stairs) if he thought we were too loud. He'd do that almost every nihgt we practiced.
One night he came down while we were in the middle of a song, walked over to my amp, peered at the controls, finally turned the 'Presence' knob down to 2, then smiled and went back upstairs.

After college I lived in a basement-level 2-room apartment in the student ghetto area of Boston. My band had been practicing in the unheated basement of our drummer, but the winter was particularly cold, and we couldn't take it anymore, so I volunteered my place. We crammed everything (including full PA) into one room and started our twice-weekly rehearsals. No one in the building ever complained! But one night, we had one of the windows open, directly above/behind the drummer. Being a basement, the windows had bars across them. As we finished a song, we heard this racket - an old lady from across the street was banging her cane on the bars. She then told us to "quiet down" and went back across the street. We closed the window and continued on ...

[ChrisE]

I live in a fairly large two-story house. No matter where I am, what I'm playing, or how softly, the women in my house (wife, 2 daughters) tell me it's too loud. Even playing my Telecaster unplugged.

I pretty much just play outside on the porch now.

[vindibona1]

When I was a kid my parents would complain occasionally. But for the most part I had enough time at home without them that it didn't matter. I didn't play guitar (electric at the time) all that loud anyway.

But as a young man I was studying trumpet. EVERYBODY COMPLAINED (except the dog). Kids and wife and anybody within ear-shot. Trumpet is LOUD!. Thankfully until 10 years ago I lived in a single family house so I could do what I wanted when everybody was out.

Now I live in a condo and have been written up by my crabby downstairs neighbor (even when I wasn't home!). He's killed off my trumpet practice. I play electric extremely softly. No complaints about acoustic practice, so that's what I play now most of the time. GF likes when I play...except when she's on the phone.

[reeve21]

Great story, Toby. I look forward to the book!

Once in a while my wife will complain when she is trying to watch TV on the floor directly above me. I try to anticipate and move to another room if it looks like that might happen.

She has no use for my saxophone at all. Haven't had it out in many years. When I was first learning to play sax my dad used to ask if I could play "Far, Far, Away."

I also had a very supportive grandfather. He was a trombone player in his youth and never missed any of our school concerts.

Thanks for the reminder about Charlie Christian, he made a huge contribution.

[sweets pal]

Loved your story, Toby! You took me right there. Well described, and your writing made me adore your grandfather.

Keep on sending your stories here.

Jan

[beninma]

I play in my finished basement. It's getting to the point it's getting to be a real nice place to practice. I'm set up in a corner these days and it seems like where I am now helps in terms of keeping the noise in my area. I can turn my chair towards the corner when playing acoustic and get the sound bouncing around the corner.

My wife has complained plenty.. even just playing acoustic.. and I have mostly played 00/000 bodies for acoustic. For acoustic I think if I'm playing single note melodies she's not really noticing upstairs but if I get a strum going she can hear it.

She is probably complaining less as I get better.. hilariously she said she hated my Telecaster numerous times when I first got it at the end of last winter, despite the fact that she listens to country radio non-stop and literally every single one of her favorite bands and songs are chock full of Teles. A Week or two ago she came down and worked on some stuff in the basement while I was playing the Tele and was suddenly saying it sounded good and I was getting a lot better. (I was playing a song by one of her favorite artists.) I did upgrade my amp a few months ago, it's possible what she hated was the original amp, but I am also getting really dialed in with that guitar.

We are in a 2-unit condo split vertically.. never heard any complaints from the neighbors, where they had complained about the TV volume upstairs when we first moved in. The neighbors have 4 kids who are all still at home, most of them are teens and they make lots of noise at night I can hear right over my playing.

[AndrewG]

Nope, just the cat who gives me a dirty look and does a runner any time I pick a guitar up. He has no class.

[mkitman]

Great story Toby!

Many year ago (in the late 60s) I was in a band that got booked for a private party. They had us set up in the living room (& didn't realize that we needed electricity!) Many extension cords later, we were in the middle of playing when an old lady walked behind me & started fiddling with the controls of my amp. We stopped playing until we came to an agreement with the owners- they don't touch our expensive equipment, & we wouldn't charge them double...

[the architect]

Great story about a great man. The good parents (& grandparent in this case) always have the kids backs.

[brancher]

My wife once said I play some songs too often. I explained I need to play a hard piece about 12,000,000 times to get it right, but she doesn't believe me.

[Steve DeRosa]

I'm reminded of a situation about ten years ago, when I was asked to be a fill-in bass player with three hidebound folkies then in their mid/late-60s...

Showed up for first rehearsal with my then go-to acoustic-gig rig - a Pedulla P/J, and a Peavey Minx 110 in all its 35-watt glory...

Used the same rehearsal settings I used for unplugged worship-team practice and my own acoustic trio - told me I was "too loud"...

Turned down the volume on my instrument - "too loud"...

Turned it down again - "too loud"...

Began to dawn on me what was going on; turned off the volume entirely and continued to play - "too loud"...

Went home, checked my customary settings with a dB meter, pulled out my Guild B4-E acoustic/electric bass and set everything for the exact same level...

Showed up for the next rehearsal with the Guild - got compliments all around and an invitation (which I declined, for obvious reasons ) to be their permanent bass player...

"It's all in the mind, y'know..."
- Beatles, Yellow Submarine (the movie)

[Matt McGriff]

Yes and it led me to buy a Yamaha Slient Guitar. One of my favorite guitar related tools. Love practicing with it against a track plugged into the aux in with my headphones on. Not only is it (practically) silent but I can listen more critically as I work on songs. And it is a great stage guitar- it is portable and sounds fantastic plugged into the PA.