Last week I read an interesting article posted on the paradiddler about “neighbor syndrome” and how to try to keep peace with those who live around you while playing drums and it brought back a lot of memories of garage rehearsals at my parents house when I was growing up.
I was fortunate enough to have great parents that understood my addiction to playing drums and even luckier to have neighbors that didn’t mind the drumming or the band practices as long as it wasn’t too early in the morning or late at night. Hell, sometimes they would come over just to check out the band.
However, now I’m all grown up and have a house and neighbors of my own along with a beautiful wife and 2 crazy dogs that go nuts over the sound of someone knocking on the door, let alone banging drums upstairs (the dogs that is, not the wife). I haven’t tested the waters with the neighbors yet mostly because of the strange looks I get just loading and unloading the drumset before and after gigs. I tend to stick to just using a practice pad at home or using a pillow when I feel the need to exercise my wrist strength.
I leave the actual practice on the drumset to band rehearsals. And after reading this news article, I’m glad that my parents and neighbors were so understanding. Now, I’m not saying that you should worry about being in the line of fire for doing what you love to do, but it never hurts to take precautions. Omar (the paradiddler) wrote many great suggestions on trying to keep peace with the neighbors including a link to audiomute who’s slogan is “We make soundproofing simple”. Looking over their products, it looks like they have a great line and I can’t wait to make a purchase once I start to create my own practice space.
I’m not going to go over all the ways you can sound proof your space in this article (I probably will in the future). If you are looking for some basic, easy ways to appease those who share your dwelling or live next to you – I suggest you take a look at Omar’s article.
Maybe you are lucky like I was when I was growing up and you have great neighbors – or maybe you hate your neighbors and don’t care how loud you are. Either way it was an interesting read and I highly suggest you consider it before practicing at home.
Popularity: 2% [?]
