I Just Want To Hit Things
I Just Want To Hit ThingsAbout 2 years ago I bit the bullet and bought an electronic kit. Not being able to play my acoustic kit on a regular basis sucked a bit (to say the very least), and with all the miserable complainers I constantly seem to reside next to, I figured an electronic kit was an apt purchase.
My Roland TD12K has served me well. I’ve used it pretty much every day since, hooking it up to a set of headphones and an iPod, never receiving any complaints regarding noise.
The kit is stored in my mum’s garage, so I’m often playing while she’s upstairs watching TV, or even in the office getting work done (which is on the same floor as the garage). I don’t know if it’s because she was so used to me playing on an acoustic set for a long time, but the electronic kit has been a god send for my mum. She says she can hear tapping, regardless of where she is in the house, but that it’s pretty faint and doesn’t bother her at all.
Today, just as I was leaving my mum’s house after a paltry 10 minutes on the kit, the next door neighbour asked if I had been drumming. I knew what was coming after that. She told me it was giving her a headache, to which I responded with “Well, that’s why I bought the electronic kit. So the only burden for neighbours is faint tapping”. She then asked if I could keep it down. It’s not even evening yet – something of that noise level shouldn’t be a problem.
To be honest, I didn’t disguise the fact I was pissed off. Drumming is something I get a huge amount of pleasure from, and I think it’s important to include hobbies in our daily lives seeing as so much time is spent working and stressing over other factors. I feel I’ve done my bit; compromising with sound levels by not only drumming on an electronic kit, but feeding it through headphones, not an amp.
I don’t play at ridiculous levels, nor do I play at unforgiving times. Truth is, I’m now forever going to be aware of this neighbour every time I sit at my kit, knowing I’m giving her a fucking headache from this amount of noise. It’s pissed me off, incase you can’t already tell.
Tonight I head to the local Yacht Club to hear a band play who are interested in having me drum for them. If all goes well, I’ll be practicing a lot more often. But now that’s tainted, because I know with every encounter of my 5A Vic Firths to my mesh heads, someone is sitting next door going “AAH! The noise!”. What do I do?
This entry was posted
on Saturday, April 18th, 2009 at 4:58 pm and is filed under Personal.
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