Today I did something I never did before. I asked a stranger to turn down his music. I didn’t want to do this, but there’s a threshold beyond which desire, reason, and tolerance clash and all inhibitions fall away. Action must be taken before the senses are taken leave of.
I’ve put up with loud noise before. I’ve made some loud noises myself. But I don’t think I’ve ever had another’s noise assail my senses in quite this way. Not without being paid to endure it, and even then protection or escape was provided.
It was so loud the walls vibrated with each bass pulse. This went on for a while, and I tried to ignore it, put it out of mind, thinking any minute it would stop. I finally went out and shouted to the person to turn it down. I was four feet away and he didn’t hear me until I waved my arm and he turned and saw me.
All day I’ve contemplated why anyone wants to listen to music at that volume. A volume beyond which nothing else can be heard. A volume at which it seems to me hearing loss isn’t just a threat but a certainty. With the bass turned up so high that anything but that part of the sound is lost beside the assault on every cell in one’s body.
The reason I thought so much about it is that I like to live and let live. I don’t like to ask that anyone change how they live, be it appearance, behavior, or tastes. And it appears loud music is a taste. But I was given no choice. Sound doesn’t stay on a leash like a dog. It crosses boundaries. I wasn’t able to go about my business without him changing his. I couldn’t keep my hearing healthy and intact, keep my blood pressure down, while putting up with his choice of loss and overexcitement, the price for his immersion in explosive sound.
Why do some people like their music so loud? Or anything so loud? Are some ears, some sensibilities, more sensitive to this? Or have the less easy with loudness simply not lost as much, are we less impaired as yet, so we hear it more acutely? I too want to hear all the notes, but I didn’t hear all his notes. I didn’t hear any notes, only noise. It wasn’t music to my ears. I wonder if mine would be music to his, or if they’re already deadened to it.
I have no answer. But in searching for one I came across a Stephen Dobyns poem online, on this very topic, Loud Music, in which he examines the difference between his favored volume for music (loud) and that of his four-year-old stepdaughter. Some compensation, at least. I got a good poetry fix out of it.
Thank you for writing down what I have felt and known my whole life. I stay in a town where people listen to loud music daily and nightly. I cry everyday. I did kindly ask a stranger on my street to turn down his bass only (not radio). He did so just to play it doubly loud the next day, all day on purpose while passing in front of my house for 10 hours straight. At one point, he sat at a corner and played the music so loud and waited for me to move a curtain, step outside, look at him, just anything. I cry every day because of the rude behavior in town. No one has any human consideration for time of day or night and the sad part is is I grew up with most of the people in town and when you see them outside of their vehicle, they are kind people. When they get in their car, it is a different story. I have called the police, but their hands are tied unless they catch them in the act which is almost next to impossible. There are no articles written about this issue nor stress enough to base on for any politician to address in my town. If something were to be done, the bass players or boomers would know it was me and give me a hard time whereas only one person does where I am sure he will be more than happy to spread the word to his buddies where they all follow each others’lead. I have suffered since I have bought my house in the neighborhood (less than 9 months), but have seriously considered moving because garbage is regularly thrown in me and my neighbor’s yard even while people see me picking it up for hours and the time I turn around, just as much garbage has been relittered on the ground. The town of people use to take pride in human consideration for their neighbor, but very little if any is seen and they are just mean to those who try to keep a decent anything in town. The first month I moved in, they stole my lawn mover, then about one month later some kids asked me if they could cut my yard. These two issues could be connected or not but the even sadder part is later that month, a burned lawn mower without the motor, was burned in the vacant lot next door to me. I invited the police to sit and perch in the driveway next door just to observe and the officer reply was basically maybe you should invest in a video camara. I think I will post a bulletin my opinion through your words and see how it goes. I still have faith that it will subside eventually. What do you think? Any suggestions?
Comment by mona — 3/12/2007 @ 12:15 am
Mona — That’s terrible. It makes me wonder if people don’t use their “music” sometimes as a sound weapon, a form of bullying. I don’t think that about what I heard, although it sounded more like a rapid succession of explosions than anything I’d call music — and I like some pretty loud and raucous music when I’m in the mood for it, though usually I go for softer sound, more so the older I get.
Living with others means making compromises, and in my house that means we keep several sets of earphones and headphones, so if one wants to listen and the other doesn’t, we can each be happy.
I’m sorry that you’re experiencing such hostility. I’m afraid I have no solution to offer, except writing letters to your representatives. There is sadly a lot of cruelty in the world and it takes some odd forms and disguises.
Comment by Barbara — 3/12/2007 @ 1:27 pm
Hello,
I just want to reply and say that it is so true - some people have to have their music loud. I refer to these types of people, as idiots. I live in an apartment, and the people below us is being evicted due to having loud music way late at night. I have to wait thirty days and then it’s good riddance, as these people are going to wait their full thirty days. The manager told me to call the police as the eviction is the only thing they can do.
The idiots below us continues with their base loud music. The music wouldn’t be so bad if it wasn’t for the base. The walls shake, the floors shake, the pictures fall, almost like an earthquake - these people do not care. They have no reguard for other’s well being, nor for their own. Police, evictions - nothing stops these people. Not to mention that the ONLY adult doesn’t work, lives off well fare, has five kids living with her that ranges 1yo to teens, all with different fathers - and the teens are outside in and out, in and out, all throughout the night while the 1 year old countinues to cry through out the night - I only notice this as I walk downstairs to my car late night. The only noise I can hear from these idiots is their music that they MUST have loud. The teens destoryed the sign for the apartment complex once they got their eviction notice.
So my questions to people like these are:
1) WHY must you make other’s life so miserable?
2) If you’re in a tough housing situation, why make it more hardship on yourself with your selfish needs?
3) Why do you let your kids go out so they can have kids and be in the same lame life you are in?
Don
Comment by Don — 8/10/2008 @ 2:08 pm