My Building #2

The people that live in the apartment below me all seem to play different instruments. Or maybe it's rotating people who each live there for a few months or weeks. I'm not sure. The point is, I can't hear them talking, listening to music or the TV, throwing or moving things, but I can hear it loud and clear whenever one of them starts to play something.

The classical violin doesn't bother me very much, or at all, actually, because it's pretty infrequent, is always lovely, and can mainly be heard only in my bathroom. Everything else is bad.

There used to be a band that seemed to be of a variety that I might describe as "ethnic rock" that would practice down there until late into the night. It involved a lot of drumming and what sounded like a person wailing/singing the same two syllable word over and over and over again. That lasted through most of the summer. Occasionally it was either just the singing or just the drumming. It was always annoying. When it was particularly hot and everyone had their windows open, sometimes the neighbors would yell at them to shut up. I tried banging on their door a couple of times but they couldn't hear me. Like I said, that was mostly during the summer.

Since then it's a saxophone (I think). And it's a lot of the time. Sometimes more people come over and it's a full on jazz jam session thing. It's generally quite unpleasant. But more often than not it's just the one horned instrument. There are definitely days when it starts at exactly 8:00am. There are also many days when it lasts until midnight. The absolute worst part, though, happens almost daily between around 6:00pm and 7:30pm. It is the time when the player of this horned instrument plays long, wavering, unmelodious notes over and over again. The only thing I can figure is that it's the tuning process. But for an hour and a half every day? Is that really necessary? I haven't ever knocked to ask the person to stop because it seems like maybe it's within their rights to do whatever it is they're doing in the early evening. There are plenty of days, though, when it legitimately hinders my ability to think.

Anyway, the tuning thing, or whatever it is, is going on right now and it's making me want to scream. So I thought I'd share.