Courtasy

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So as not to hijack the airplane thread, I was wondering how courteous we all actually are? In Iowa, I live in a house, with a front yard and a back yard, a big garage, surrounded by lilac bushes. I can make a lot of noise in my back yard and not bother my neighbors. I could crank up an amp inside and no one would hear me. Sometimes I play on the front porch, which is an open porch, and my neighbors can hear me a little. If I do that, it is usually on Saturday and Sunday afternoons, and my next door neighbor can't hear it, or at least he says he can't The neighbor across the street can, but barely. Regardless, back yard or front yard, I seldom play outside after supper.

In San Juan, I live in a condo. It is a very old building. In fact, it is on the historical register. Windows and doors are normally left wide open to allow for breeze. Everyone hears what everyone else is saying or doing. As I write this I can hear a neighbor somewhere washing dishes. Everyone is very courteous to each other. Many people who have apartments here, live here part time. Doctors, a Coast Guard Commander, a few retired people, and some permanent residents. The point is, there isn't any non professional people living here. Sometimes people allow other people to use their apartments here, and sometimes those visitors get a little loud, but not a lot, and trust me, if that happens, it does not take long for the owner to get the word.

I play my uke in the mid afternoon here in San Juan. Almost every day. Usually there is hardly anyone around at that time of the day. One of my neighbors is actually a drummer, and he practices in the afternoon as well, but I can just barely hear him. He has a special room with acoustic panels that drown out the sound. He is generally done by four in the afternoon, and usually not a sound comes out of his apartment after that. Once in a great while, in the evenings, he will just go nuts down there for five minutes, then nothing. I don't know if he gets a sudden urge or what.

Our condo is very close. Everyone knows everyone. Everyone talks to everyone. But at the same time, I don't want someone to have to come and ask me to keep it down. My point being, in San Juan, I really try to think about my neighbors and try not to disturb them. I understand that not everyone wants to hear lovely ukulele music while they are eating supper or trying to watch TV.
 
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I live in a condo too, and I never play anything 'til after 8:30 am. The loud instruments I play in the afternoon. I play my Ukes in the morning usually but mostly anytime during the day. If I play at night, I play my sorprano, but mostly I listen to music. Most of my neighbors work during the day or don't care if I play. It's pretty quiet here, except for me. :eek:ld:
 
I'm almost 50, and I've lived in apartments/small spaces/big cities nearly my whole life. I grew up playing music (badly) in one form or another and was given the example from an early age to ALWAYS be courteous if somebody asked me to keep it down, and to use common sense about when/where to "make noise." And I can count the number of complaints/requests from others to keep it down I've had in my lifetime: two. One in response to playing at 2am when I was still in my teens and had moved to my first apartment, and didn't realize how thin the walls were, and one many years later in my current place when my landlord's kid had a migraine and he said the music was bothering him (as a fellow migraineur, I understand completely!). So I'd say in general I must be pretty courteous about it.

I moved into my current place right around the time I started playing uke again. I share a common wall with my landlord's family in the main house, and then in back there's a 4-unit apartment building with anywhere from 4 to 8 tenants living there at any given time. When I moved in, I told my landlord to please tell me if the music bothered him (he did so only once, noted above); the constantly-changing parade of neighbors in the back building have never made any comments about it so I think it's safe to assume that my uke doesn't carry that far.

I've also had other players over from time to time, anywhere from 2 to 8 people, and every time I do this I let my neighbors know what to expect beforehand and always ask them to let me know if things get too loud. Nobody has ever done so.

The area I live in is densely populated, and there's a big condo next door to my little house. In the summer, I can hear everything from screaming children to dinner parties to phone conversations from the occupants, so I assume they can hear me playing. As I don't know any of the occupants and it's a security building, I haven't given them a heads-up on the occasions that I've had summer uke gatherings, but again - there haven't been any complaints.

So until I hear otherwise, I'm going to assume that I'm (a) being courteous and (b) not bothering anybody. The fact that we've got that big-city isolation thing going on, in which we don't really know our neighbors aside from those on our own property, kind of makes me worry a little that I may at times be a nuisance to somebody and not know it, but hey - if they don't speak up, there's not a lot I can do.
 
I honestly believe we Americans can, rather accurately, be described as fearful, distrustful people (think cowardly, narcissistic). For those of us who travel abroad and/or remember a time when it wasn't this way, it's so easy to see.
Sorry, there's nothing I can do about it. But, you won't catch me playing my ukulele on my front porch. If you have the nerve to invade my space by getting so close, you may find me "sighting in" my .357 magnum (if you know what I mean.).
 
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I remember when I first started playing I was outside practicing. My neighbour -- who lives across the vacant lot from us -- was having new windows installed. The installers were NOT impressed by my playing and snidely said, loud enough for me to hear, "man, she really will need theses new windows". You don't wanna know what I said to myself.

Anyway....I tend to not play outside very often. But, if I am getting ready for UWC or something, I will plug in my amp and open the windows so that anybody walking around the pond can hear me play. It's my way of getting ready, and hopefully get rid of pre-performance nerves. Does it work? I don't think so, but I do it anyway.

I don't play after 8 or 9 PM. Why piss off the neighbours? We are also the kind of people who will let neighbours know if we are having a big party so they can be prepared. Man, they hate when we have garage sales, though.
 
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Well, we live in California and rent a small house, and I practice every day. All the homes are very close together, so it is easy to hear the neighbors. I am friends with my neighbors on both sides, and we have a deal that if anyone is too loud we just have to let each other know....Sometimes, I do play outside in the backyard (but only softly) and both sides have told me that they love it...but I do make sure to not play (indoors or outdoors) in the early morning or in the evenings, out of respect for my neighbors. I just want to continue the good relationship we have. One of my neighbors has even started to try and learn the guitar now, because she says that listening to me play made her realize that she wants to play an instrument too...so who knows, maybe someday we will have a neighborhood band...
 
My house is older style on a quarter acre so the neighbours aren't too close. The one nearest my living room is a shift worker: twelve hour shifts; two days, two nights, then four days off. Unless I see him around I have no idea where he's at in his schedule so I try to be quiet. Mostly I manage not to accidently activate the car alarm. Mostly! The living room doors and windows are closed when I practice. There is a verandah which I plan to use on summer evenings, perhaps to enjoy a glass of something cold, but not to practice.

I have mentioned the various instruments to both neighbours and they said they have never heard them, so I can practice quietly any time. Using the amp would be different but I'd use 'phones if I thought there'd be a problem.

At the back of my section there is a protected tree, as I write this the staff from the local council are here doing some maintenance work on the tree, and felling some competing trees. As well as chain saws they have a big machine out front that turns trees into mulch and that thing is seriously noisy. There must be nobody for hundreds of yards around that can't hear this. We'll all be pleased when peace returns... ;)
 
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I honestly believe we Americans can, rather accurate, be described as fearful, distrustful people. For those of us who travel abroad and/or remember a time when this wasn't this way, it's so easy to see.
Sorry, there's nothing I can do about it. But, you won't catch me playing my ukulele on my front porch. If you have the nerve to invade my space by getting so close, you may find me "sighting in" my .357 magnum (if you know what I mean.).
No, I don't know what you mean. Why would you feel threatened to play your uke on the front porch, and who would invade your space? I'm not trying to be confrontational, I just don't understand what you are saying.
 
Courtesy is a way of reducing tensions in a group to a level below the "Big Stick" philosophy endorsed by stevepetergal. It is a fundamental right of Americans to "the pursuit of happiness". People are happy when they are within there comfort zone. If you intrude into this "bubble" people become unhappy. This intrusion can take many forms. Physical proximity is one form. Different people and groups have differently sized bubbles. City folks, (group), tend to have a very small bubble. That is you have to get very close to them to be "In Their Face". Some people and groups don't have a bubble. Policemen don't generally have a bubble. It is an asset in their line of work. Policemen's family members tend to have little or no bubble either because they are in the same group. The key here is to understand every group has their own set of values and etiquette. Courtesy is how we deal with people who are not within our own group.

America is a heterogeneous amalgam of cultures, ethnicities and traditions with many, many groups. Courtesy becomes a very malleable thing in a place like America. Many who have responded to this thread thus far are in the group: "condo-dwellers". I live in a village and noise and privacy values you condo-dwellers have are very different from country values. Country values include acknowledging other folks in passing, whether you know them or not. (This most certainly is not a city dwellers value or courtesy) In the country or city if you don't want your neighbors to intrude pull your shades. In the city or the country sitting on the porch or stoop and playing your uke invites your neighbors to participate; Even if only to say please stop. Playing the Banjo on the porch or playing the Ukulele on the beach are American Icons. BTW if you see a country person sitting on the and openly displaying, (not cleaning), their firearms they are emphatically saying the shades are pulled. Ain't that right Steve?

It is not surprising to me that a group like UU has established a set of standards of etiquette as regards where it is appropriate to play or not play Ukulele. That is courtesy to others. Tolerance of other groups or individuals values is also courtesy. Tolerance is a value that Americans as a group need to work on.
 
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Is it discourteous to point out an egregious spelling error in the title of this thread?

It's amazing how often folks do this here and elsewhere on Internet forums. Maybe spell check doesn't work on thread titles, but it does in this txet. (intentional, just checking...and it worked...)
 
I play uke, guitar, didgeridoo, etc outside all the time. I live in a residential neighborhood where the houses are very close together and there are obnoxious dog owners on all sides of me. People seem to think it's totally cool to leave their two or three untrained dogs out all day and night so they just bark incessantly and snarl at you through the fence, so if anyone complains about my music I really don't care anymore. :B Courtesy is dead here, but I'm thankful that passive-aggressiveness prevails over threatening people with a gun in these parts.
 
The loudest thing I play is my clarinet, and I can't play it late at night without waking my kids, so I don't play it late at night. We have a nice sized yard, so my playing doesn't bother the neighbors. We play our ukuleles out by the pool, or in the front yard and I doubt if anyone can even hear it. Probably the loudest thing we do is splash around late at night during the summer.
 
Is it discourteous to point out an egregious spelling error in the title of this thread?

It's amazing how often folks do this here and elsewhere on Internet forums. Maybe spell check doesn't work on thread titles, but it does in this txet. (intentional, just checking...and it worked...)
No, I don't find it discourteous, but I do think that it is pretty obvious without being pointed out. But yes, it is an "error" and I did not do it on purpose. As soon as I posted it I thought, crap, I wonder how long it is before someone points that out. I'm sorry, and I understand if you do not wish to participate in the the post because of the error in the title.
 
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I have great neighbors. I also have 3 dogs. It is about an equivalent to the guy two doors down having like a million kids. And the teens next door shoot bottle rockets at each other and yell Harry Potter spell words at each other. And the guy across the street raised hunting hounds before he died....

Everyone has their own thing going on. And no one else cares.
 
We all need to come to accommodation with our neighbors; But what about in public? If it makes you happy and doesn't hurt anyone try it. If people complain gracefully desist.

Two weeks a year my wife and I go to Bethany Beach for her vacation. We have access to a 5th floor condominium 50 yards from the beach. Due to severe disability issues I cannot walk on the beach or swim in the pool. I bought my uke the day we went down to the shore this year. I join Susan at the pool with banjo or uke. Susan had some courtesy concerns, (which she didn't mention at the time)!

I sang, played the banjo and a little uke. Were there any complaints? Well there was one. A guy requested a song I didn't know. Another guy, 4 years old requested Libba Cotton's "Freight Train". He sang along, hanging to the side of the pool. I asked him were he learned the song from. He said he learned it from a Grateful Dead Album.:)
 
But what about in public?
I think it really depends. Then again, I still get annoyed by people who answer their phone in the checkout line and proceed to chatter loudly, like no one else can hear them.

Let me ask you this... at the pool, if someone had brought a boom box and started playing rap music (or any style of music you don't particularly care for), would you have thought it was okay? Some people hang out by the pool to enjoy the sun and silence, maybe read a book or something.

I'm not knocking playing in public, just playing devil's advocate. You can't judge someone else's tastes and say rap sucks and it's an intrusion, but ukulele is cool (in my mind) so it's okay to impose it on people.

I sang, played the banjo and a little uke. Were there any complaints? Well there was one. A guy requested a song I didn't know. Another guy, 4 years old requested Libba Cotton's "Freight Train". He sang along, hanging to the side of the pool. I asked him were he learned the song from. He said he learned it from a Grateful Dead Album.:)
I think you had a couple really nice encounters. Especially the kid. That's amazing. Maybe you should encourage him to take up the uke, tell his parents you'll teach him some. He sounds like a real musician in the making. :)
 
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