...while you are practicing?

I have two children, so I am usual playing with all type of noises. But there is one noise wich I cannot bear.

When the washing machine finishes its work, makes a intermittent high noise for two minutes. I can hear it from my room. I could get up and turn off the washing machine, but the most times I would like to ignore this noise and carry on playing.

But I cannot do that. Finaly, I have to get up and turn off the washing machine, so stopping my practice.

I hate it.

My wife's cat Squeaky, which is about 95% deaf. She can hear very high pitches, but that's all. When I play, she is attracted to the sound or maybe the vibration. She sits in the hallway and meows very loud, much as a deaf person might talk too loud because they are not aware of the volume of their voice. It drives me nuts. The only solution is to pick her up and console her for a minute or two, then place her on the stool by the piano. She'll sit there quietly then until I finish practicing.

What we go through for our pets!

Sam

Doorbell or knock on the door

Ooh! I know exactly what you are talking about. I can ignore all kinds of noise, except for our rice cooker. When it finishes, it makes a high-pitched digital beeping noise, and the blasted thing has to beep 10 times!! Plus, it's about as loud as a jack-hammer! It is the worst noise ever, it must be just the right pitch to be like an aural-dagger straight into my brain.

cartoons & football...can't stand the sound of either one.

Man busking with bagpipes.
he makes the same mistake every time in the same song.
I always end up listening when he gets near that point just to see if he has finally got it right.
He never does.

My two dogs always start wrestling and growling around at each other. I thought it was because they were bothered by my playing, but a friend told me she thinks they are just dancing to the lovely music I play....

"Mom?.... Mom?..... Mooooooommmmmmm?????..... MOM! Hey, Mom! Where are you?!?...." ["Just a minute, honey, I'm trying to finish this piece."] [Five milliseconds pass by.] "Mom?... Are you done yet? Mom?? MOM!??"

the sound of my dog squeaking his awful squeaky toys.. and children, children talking/yelling as they walk down my street.. why do the girls have to screech like that? and why does it always sound like they are being murdered when the boys are just chasing them with worms in their hands.. i always get up to look just in case they are hurt or being kidnapped or something.. which is extra annoying..

but then again, really those children annoy me any time of day, not just practice time.. and i hardly ever let my dog have his squeaky toys anymore.. i think its the high pitched-ness of both of those sounds.. i hate most high pitched things..

"Daddy ..."

Doof, doof, doof from a few houses away.

The timer on the stove. It goes off 1 minute before it is done, as a "signal", and then beeps repeatedly every 30 seconds til someone turns it off.

Competition from my son's drum kit...he just cannot keep to the same rhythm ;(

I never thought about it before but I don't think any noise bothers me while I'm playing. I guess if there was an earthquake and the house started making annoying noises as it fell apart around me that might get to me.

no squeaking dogs, cats, childs and washing machines here I can easily imagine them being on the top of the list

But in their absence, my main annoyance is squeaking pedals and buzzes from some piano notes. I'm very happy to have that squeek in the pedal resolved

Next in line is the fridge that makes some humming noise. Close the door to the kitchen helps, and next is turning the fridge off (particularly when making a recording)

The sound of my wife breathing. It goes in and out and in and out and in ................it's just never ending.

crippy

Airplanes! They always decide to take off or land at the airport nearby when I'm in the middle of recording a piece. Then I have to start over again, because you can hear them really well inside my apartment. But it is handy living 5 minutes from the airpot

Garden tools!!!!! I live in a neighbourhood of multi-unit buildings, & most have tiny gardens cared for by gardening companies that can spend hours grooming a narrow strip of mostly shrubbery with weed-eaters, leaf-blowers, etc. And right next door to me, the only building with lawn (again, a tiny, tiny patch) is cared for by either the manager or owner, with all of the above, plus an ancient gas mower that sounds like it has rocks in its motor. The buzzing & rattling can go on for hours!!

"Honey, did you remember to . . . ?"

The door bell. It simply cannot be ignored... my dogs make sure of that! The UPS man, whom my wife likes to summon, almost daily since she learned to shop online, likes to drop the goods and ring the doorbell- leaving me with barking dogs, until I get up and retrieve the package.

You need a nice digital piano Augustina!

o.O

That's the one...

My sister is the same way!

There's not a lot that bothers me when I'm practicing since I live out in the country. However, I do have a problem with my digital piano. The higher notes on it sound...fine, they just annoy me. I suppose it's got something to do with the speakers in it. They just don't sound as good as the rest of the notes do. Ever since I learned to abuse the record feature, passing cars don't bother me when I'm trying to get a video now.

Wouter hit it on the nose... Squeeky pedals and keys or buzzing strings. That would really annoy me.

Tinnitus.

i hate that stuff

The dogs. They come into the room and start to wrestle when I start to play. I can pretty much ignore the noise, it's the continuous bumping into the bench that bugs me.

My washer, a Samsung, is so very polite. It dings only three times then plays a couple measures of what sounds like Mozart to announce it is finished with a load. It's kinda cute!

Unidentified noises bother me most. I can't help but attempt to identify every single noise I hear. This drives me nuts at night because EVERYTHING keeps me up. Every time I hear a noise, I must identify the source of it in my mind. I can't help it and don't try to do it. I just do.

This can be very frustrating when playing a piece and then hearing a snap or a crack or something.

Besides the unidentified noises, my Siamese cat yowels the "Uh-Oh" song all night long. Constantly. He's a yowler and screams "Uh-Oh" throughout the house all night long.

My Tinnitus doesn't bother me when I play but those weird whistling harmonics on my middle F and C are making me ready to go up on a university tower with a super soaker. Next time the tech is out we have to address those.

There is a sound that makes me lose concentration and even stop playing sometimes: the sirens of the ambulances or fire-trucks. There is a hospital in my town and I am used to listen this kind of sound several times a day, but not when I play the piano.

But the sound that makes me lose my temper is the car horn of people who use it to call someone in the neigbourhood instead of getting down the car and ringing the door bell. Actually, I think that it is not related with piano concentration, but with the fact that I hate the people that do this kind of things.

Yes. I have this problem too, particularly with half heard music ... I have to try and work out what the tune is and it keeps me awake.

My wife's voice LOL!

o.O

Coffee machine that beeps five times to announce it is done. One beep is sufficient thank you very much! Thankfully my dryer has the ability to turn off the end of cycle buzzer as the old dryer would drive me mad with its repeated buzzing.