| LearnJazzPiano.com archives: People get pissed when I play. | |
| littlerascal -- 07/15/2007, 20:59:23 -- #35875 | |
| Whenever I practice piano in the family room, my mom gets annoyed/mad and tells me to stop playing. She hates it when I play piano because listening to me practice is loud and annoying plus we have hardwood floors in our house and that makes the piano sound louder. Both of us are gone during the day from work and we get home around the same time so I can't practice at all. The only time I can practice is on the Weekends because she usually goes shopping so I have the house all to myself for a couple hours. How do you guys deal with this? Do your family members get annoyed of you playing the piano? | |
| 7 -- 07/15/2007, 21:49:17 -- #35875 | |
| My folks put the piano out in the garage once they figured out that I wasn't going to stop. If you don't have a garage, get a digital piano and put on the headphones. BTW, the same thing will happen to you once you get married, and it will happen to you again once you have children. Get used to it ... | |
| Jazz+ -- 07/15/2007, 22:04:05 -- #35875 | |
| You could drape a thick blanket or comforter over it. And also drape a strip of felt inside between the hammers and the strings to mute it. Don,t let the felt be too thick or you will have to hammer to hard to get a sound. | |
| tangman06 -- 07/15/2007, 22:12:08 -- #35875 | |
| i use a keyboard a lot of the time. You might consider getting one- you'll need it later on if you start gigging anyway. | |
| CynBad -- 07/15/2007, 22:40:54 -- #35875 | |
| I used to keep my piano in a separate room with a door on it, even a bedroom, and practice in there. I'm lucky now because I have a large room downstairs that I use for a music room. I was complaining about TV noise from upstairs, and my sweet husband installed a single French door to shut off the lower level from the upper. He put in some really cool lighting for me, too. What a guy! | |
| Paul -- 07/16/2007, 03:49:48 -- #35875 | |
| A keyboard is the way to go. Even with a super cheap one with head phones you can can get alot done. I spent the last week in rual southern Mexico with my wife's family. No electricity, so I brought an old Casio that I got at a garage sale, put in some batteries and I was able to get in a least three hours of quality practice a day during my stay. Maybe do your technique work on the acoustic and rest on a keyboard with head phones. Like 7 said, practicing will always be an issue. It hasn't been a problem for me in terms of noise, but the time it takes away from spending time with the family and doing chores and such has and probably will be on going battle. | |
| Whacky -- 07/16/2007, 07:23:59 -- #35875 | |
| I do remember my mother wondering about the Bartok, but she actually learned to dig it:) | |
| knotty -- 07/16/2007, 07:49:15 -- #35875 | |
| I got some sound absorbing panel from Auralex. I put them behind the sound board. That works well if you have an upright. It takes a lot of the sound away and makes it more manageable. I know also that you can have these systems installed on some pianos where it essentially becomes a digital piano. I really don't know what it's worth. For the money, you might be better off with a digital keyboard... | |
| sdm -- 07/16/2007, 08:38:48 -- #35875 | |
| Knotty, what did you end up spending for the Auralex solution. This sounds like something my wife would like a lot! | |
| knotty -- 07/16/2007, 09:02:27 -- #35875 | |
| A friend has a studio. He had some extra. 2 of those covered the whole 52" soundboard. Worked perfectly. He got them from sweetwater. I'll see if he can recommend a good way to buy them. In the meantime, you can try giving sweetwater.com a call and see if they can recommend something. The sale staff is pretty good. My guess is between $50 and $100 per panel. Something I might be able to do for you is record with and without. I'm not sure my poor recording equipment would be helpful, but I'm willing to try :) | |
| knotty -- 07/16/2007, 10:51:09 -- #35875 | |
| sdm, Instead of paraphrasing, I'll copy the IM discussion I had with my friend. I thought the ones he gave me were pre-built because they look good. (12:34:05 PM) Robert: what are you trying to do? (12:34:08 PM) Robert: is this for the Piano? (12:34:20 PM) Robert: or are you trying to get another room quieted down? (12:34:29 PM) Robert: what are you trying to control? (01:34:20 PM) knotty75: it's a guy trying to do the same thing. (01:34:27 PM) knotty75: his wife's going nuts (01:34:50 PM) Robert: I see (01:35:03 PM) Robert: Owens Corning 705 (01:35:06 PM) Robert: this is what he needs (01:35:13 PM) Robert: build 2'x4" frames (01:35:25 PM) Robert: and shove the Owens Corning 705 rigid fiberglass in it (01:35:41 PM) Robert: then cover it with something that breathes like the material I used (01:35:43 PM) Robert: burlap (01:35:51 PM) Robert: not hard to build just very time consuming (01:36:20 PM) knotty75: ok. Can you find pre-built? (01:37:39 PM) Robert: yes real expensive it's not worth buying those prebuilt just buy Auralex (01:37:51 PM) Robert: Each Panel is like 160.00 prebuilt (01:37:57 PM) Robert: heck I would build them for 160 :D (01:38:00 PM) Robert: and sell them (01:38:07 PM) Robert: but I don't have the time (01:38:08 PM) Robert: way too busy (01:38:21 PM) knotty75: hehe, ok. fair enough, thanks! This might also help. http://www.atsacoustics.com/item--Owens-Corning-705--1010.html Let me know if you need more info. | |
| littlerascal -- 07/16/2007, 11:09:45 -- #35875 | |
| I wish I could buy a keyboard, but I'll have to save some money, cuz I got nothin. Have you guys ever gotten complaints from neighbors? where I live, the houses are so close to each other and one day I was practicing and my neighbor knocked on my door and asked me to keep it down. She said that she works graveyard so she needed to sleep during the day. Ever since that, I always worry that I'm annoying my neighbors when i play so I play really soft or press the mute pedal. | |
| sdm -- 07/16/2007, 12:11:16 -- #35875 | |
| Knotty -- thanks a lot. Sounds like a project but worth it to make someone happy. Cool. | |
| jmkarns -- 07/16/2007, 12:30:20 -- #35875 | |
| Book yourself a gig at a senior center or nursing home and practice to your heart's content. I have polished off many a song this way. | |
| Jazz+ -- 07/16/2007, 14:35:48 -- #35875 | |
| I had a foam rubber store cut lengths of foam rubber that fit perfectly in the ribs of the upright's sound board on the back of the piano and that quieted it down a lot. Put a blanket on top after that and it's a whisper of its former self. | |
| littlerascal -- 07/16/2007, 15:08:17 -- #35875 | |
| Gig? I suck at piano. I'm barley learning Fur Elise and Moonlight sonata first movment right now. | |
| tune -- 07/17/2007, 09:04:13 -- #35875 | |
| Things could be worse, I started on accordion way back. Nothing worse than a beginner on accordion. Later I had my piano in a row home with thin walls. When I moved out neighbors mentioned how they liked the music. Pretty cool always having an audience to think about. | |
| Scot -- 07/17/2007, 12:24:28 -- #35875 | |
| littlerascal- get a thick piece of material. Someone mentioned felt, but any thick piece of material will work (old blue jeans, a blanket, etc). Drape it over the strings where the hammers hit. You'll have a much softer piano that way. Shouldn't bother people. However, if you're pissing everyone off it could be that you're practicing wrong. Are you playing through Fur Elise and making the same mistakes? Have you practiced those mistakes? When you practice, you should immediately stop at any point in the music where you screw up. Then you go back a measure or two and play through it again, very slowly. Stupid slow we used to say. You practice that trouble spot at a stupid slow tempo until you got it. Then you try it at speed again. If you make the same mistake, I don't care if it's a timing mistake or a note mistake, you stop, go back, and work on it stupid slow again until you have it right. Then you go on and do that to the next problem spot. If you do that, you'll soon learn the songs so that you don't have to practice them any longer and you can work on something like Minuet in G by Bach. People tend to get pissed off when you play something wrong over and over again. It happened to me when I was 18 and working in Glacier Nat Park, in northern Montana. The only piano for me to mess around on was in the employee cafeteria. The only people there were prep cooks, but I pissed them off over and over again by trying to nail a classical piece without really learning it the right way, the way I suggested above. If I played jam stuff and had fun, they didn't care. But they did care about hearing the same mistakes over and over again. That will drive anyone crazy. So, stop and learn the problem areas by practicing them really slowly so that you can play through your songs without any mistakes. You'll stop pissing people off and you'll be a better pianist. | |
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