Has anyone here managed to get a real piano into their flat without problems with the neighbours (not one of those pretend clavinovas)?

I about to have my upright piano shipped over to join me but I am a bit worried about the neighbours. They don't seem like the friendliest bunch.

I did declare the piano when I registered for the appartment so landlord should be ok, and made sure I was ground floor so no one underneath (at least not living anyway).

Anyone with experience in this area or with other musical instruments...?

Hey Jazz

The women in the flat opposite to us has a piano and plays frequently. No-one seems to mind and she is on the top floor. We are also in a very 'swiss' block.

If that is anything to go by you will be fine.

Hi Jazz,

I agree with Polly that in general musical instruments don't seem to be viewed as a nuisance. I have a piano and a violin, and I've never had any complaints about me playing them at home. I know a few other people with upright pianos at home as well, and they seem to be well tolerated by the neighbours.

However, I think to keep the peace with those living above you, I'd try to limit practice time to reasonable hours.

If the neighbours have kids, I think 8 pm is the generally-accepted cutoff time. Personally, I'd never play after 9 pm on a work night regardless, even though quiet hours officially start at 10; I know lots of people who are in bed by 9:30 because their jobs require them getting up at an insanely early hour, and I try to be respectful of other people's need for sleep.

If your neighbours do complain, in my experience the best thing to do is agree to some acceptable hours in which you can play. Often tensions arise not because you are making noise (erm... I mean beautiful music), but because you are making it at the wrong time (e.g when kids are napping, when people are in bed, etc.). If you are willing to accommodate your neighbour's desire for quiet during certain times, hopefully they'll return the favour by allowing you to practice undisturbed.

Cheers,

HeatherM

Don't it all hinge on how well you play?

Thanks, it sounds from this that I should be ok. We had a cut off time in the UK of 9pm every night for instruments. I had elderly neighbours on both sides so had to be a little considerate.

I am holding off playing the flute in the flat at the moment because with no furnishings at all, it is a little echo'y and loud!

I'm sure I'll be posting in the Complaints Corner soon if things don't work out...

Its all a matter of taste...

I've read on these forums that the Swiss, in general, really like their peace and quiet. Which is, in general, fine by me.

However, I'm not sure that this will be conducive to practicing musical instruments. In the UK, I play drums and guitar. Now *obviously* I am not going to play drums in my flat in Zurich - in the UK I play them in a rehearsal room, not my house - but I would like to play guitar. Is practicing an acoustic guitar (during sensible hours) acceptable in a flat? Or failing that, an electric run through headphones (less satisfying, but quieter...)

And if playing in a flat is not possible, does anyone know how much it costs to hire a rehearsal room, and/or know of any good rehearsal rooms in Zurich (ideally with drum kit?)

You should have no problems with playing your guitar in your flat. Someone had a similar question about playing a piano in this thread.

Cheers,

HeatherM

Does your flat have an underground bunker? - I know of people that practise in these but only when they're playing louder rock type stuff with drums, guitars etc.

In our apartment block we have hobby rooms and I often hear people playing drums and what sounds like band practice in there, its cut off from the main part of the building so we can't hear it in our apartments - maybe your building has a similar area?

Playing accoustic guitar is acceptable in an appartment. By the rules you just have to respect the silence at night which according to most rental contracts starts at 22:00. However it would be sensible to set yourself some other limits. For example, when I used to play trombone I rarely did so in the morning, past eight in the evening, or for more than an hour a day. I you're significantly above this, it is advisable to contact your neighbors or to search a rehearsal room (which is called Übungsraum in German) for your guitar practice, too.

This thread is similar to the mentioned old one, I'll merge them.

Jazz i have heard your daughter play the piano, and i would love you to be my neighbour, so i could listen to her play everyday, she is a fantastic player

I think sound travels upwards, so you being on the ground floor means that your upstairs neighbours will be able to hear your piano.

I have an upright piano in my apartment and have had no complaints from my neighbours. They often make (nice) comments about my piano-playing, so I presume that they can hear it. I have been told that my previous neighbour played a lot of loud techno music which they complained about. So perhaps tolerance does depend on what you're playing :-)

Also, if your landlord approved of you playing a musical instrument in your apartment, then you should be fine, provided that you play within certain hours.

In our appt house we have a couple of "musicians", a guy who "plays the blues" on his guitar on the balcony and a pianist which I love to hear. The general feeling is that nobody minds during the day or early evening but after that its a no go. I must add that most of them in the house are retired.

I've been a Jazz/Salsa musician in Switzerland for 10 years.

I had many problems because of rehearsing at home.

You legally have right to do "noise" Mo-Fr from 9h-22h unless your contract says otherwise.

However it is not pleasant for your neighbors to hear you rehearsing or practicing. Even if you are good and what you do is not "noise" but "beautiful music".

Mind that your "beautiful music" definition could differ from your neighbors'.

You could be legally and contractwise allowed to play at home, but this could get you enemies on the building. A situation you could want to avoid.

There are many rehearsal facilities in Switzerland, where you could go and practice without annoying anyone.

I would advice you to do so.

Good luck with the practicing; I'll be in the same boat.

I'm moving my digital piano with headphones to Switzerland, and I'm leaving my beautiful grand piano back home. One reason is that I've heard it's impossible for musicians to find good music-friendly living arrangements there.

These are unfortunate restrictions, but at least I will no longer have to deal with the 2-5pm siesta hour silence in Spain!

Our neighbours' eldest son has been learning to play saxophone for the past 2 years, and as far as I know, nobody complained, evening in the painful beginnings.... Our neighbour above us had a piano (regular warmup tune was "how much is that doggie in the window" ), and somewhere in the woods surrounding the Uetliberg and facing our flat I would swear there was an alphorn practice group. I think most Swiss are more tolerant than their outer appearances would lead you to think!

I think there are quite a few different aspects here. How long and how often is one consideration. Quality of the music, type of music, what the unwilling listener is doing at the time... How many people in the neighbourhood are practicing daily makes a difference to ones tolerance levels. If one has an ill child who has just dropped off to sleep, the mother's tolerance limit may well be zero.
We used to have two members of the same family practicing the trumpet at the same time, one above and one below in the 'Workroom' - and they were not playing the same thing. If I were making a noise myself I didn't care, if I were trying to read, I did. Another point is that as one gets older the ears become less able to filter sound, so if there is too much background sound, I can no longer hear speech in my own flat.
Hurrah for digital pianos and headphones and many thanks to those who use them!

A lot of good replies - thank you all so much. Salsa_Lover - you have some very good points - I certainly don't want to be a nuisance to my neighbours. Hopefully an unplugged electric guitar will be inaudible to neighbours, and I shall look into finding a rehearsal place for anything noisier.

What? You mean I can't turn my marshall amp up to 11 and blast some ACDC licks? Damn. But no one seems to mind when I play blues on my acoustic.
like the other posters said it depends on what other people consider to be beautiful and what they consider to be noise regardless of the hours. Me personally I find noise (at very high volume) to be just as beautiful as some good blues or classical but thats just me. My advice is to just play and consider no feed back from your neighbors as good feedback.

I have a piano (upright, but very sonorous) in my apartment.

No one "complained", but within 3 months I was intimidated into not playing it anymore.

Here's my story.

I work till around 7 p.m. I would come home and practice between 7 p.m. and 10 p.m. No problems for about a month.

After about a month, little by little my Swiss neighbors who never ever even bothered saying "hello" to me before would start saying "hello, are you the pianist?" if they caught me in the laundry room. Then would follow a strange conversation about how nicely I played, and would I please not forget to clean the lint after using the dryer.

One day I was practicing, it was 7:30 p.m. or so. I get a knock on the door from the downstairs neighbors. They say "I play beautifully but could I please sometimes play some Jazz or some typically Swiss songs because although they like classical sometimes Jazz or pop music would be nice."

At this of course I stared at them very puzzled. Then he added: "By the way, in the apt above yours lives a dentist. He works very hard. He says it would be nice if you would stop playing at 8 p.m. every night please." (Nevermind that this "dentist" had never even spoken to me and he never even came home before 9 or 10 p.m. anyway).

After that I could never really play after 8 p.m. Soon after that I changed jobs so that I would arrive home at 7:30. As a pianist you know that half an hour of practice a day is useless, so I stopped playing during the week.

Shortly after that whenever the neighbors saw me, after prefacing all conversations with: "you're the pianist, you play beautifully" the next question would be: "Why don't you play anymore?"

The funny thing was, they always tried to be polite, saying: "you play beautifully", but then that would always be followed by some sort of "In switzerland we do things this way" implication/accusation. It was very subtle and rather passive aggressive.

Now I only play sometimes on Saturdays but obviously I can't really "practice". Because if you repeat the same passage 30 times like one is supposed to do so when "practicing" I immediately get a knock on the door, one of the neighbors asking about whether I'm done with the laundry or have I seen their cat or something.

Funny, they never knock on my door when I'm not playing.