Comments

What a trial it is to have been born with refined tastes and have to suffer the uncouth behavior and appalling bad tastes of everyone around you. Aha. You too, Jim? Yep, except I'm the bass player:P Well, there you have it! (Begins to hum "Ebony and Ivory.") I sympathize with everybody. You probably can't do what you need to do there with bass leaking through the wall, even if he was playing your favorite music perfectly. If you can't make peace with him, perhaps it'd help to find out when he's *not* there and move your lesson time. After all, there's no sense in paying money for a lesson that you can't get anything out of.

However, it might be more convenient to try to make peace with him, as irritating as he may be. Just pretend that he's not irritating for as long as you need to converse with him. Being antagonistic really isn't going to solve anything -- even if you do have the better taste in this case!

Thanks for your comments, Patty and Jim. Oddly, I can sympathize with everyone too, now that I'm more removed from the situation (and have loudly vented my frustration). Good suggestions, Patty. There will always be something in the way of a perfect lesson, I suspect. Pretty much like life. That man is being totally unfair and unreasonable. He has no business making so much noise in an adjacent room that he robs you, in part, of the productive lesson you're paying for. I'm disappointed in your teacher for letting him get away with it. This is no time for meditation. This is time to be sure that you get your money's worth. Move to a different room or a different time slot if necessary, but don't put up with this guy. Tell your teacher how you feel. The more the two of you let him walk on you, the more he'll walk on you.

I participate in a yoga class. Our teacher is a 70 year old woman who weighs about 95 lb. She is so sweet and patient that she could be canonized. Our yoga classroom is adjacent to a gym, where big men with big muscles move big weights and listen to a very loud boom box. Our sweet little teacher goes into the gym to quiet them down whenever it's necessary. She sets a good example.

The funniest story I've ever read in violinist.com!

Luckily my teacher teaches at her home. So there no other "noise" to interrupt. But then, I travel 2.5 hours on train to my lesson and then 2.5 hours back. That's 5 hours of potential practice time gone every fortnight.

Thanks, William and Pauline! (William - 5 hours of travel time - wow! Makes me feel better about my 1.5 hours of travel time.)

Pauline - on the noise level. An irony of the last lesson is that my teacher told me she'd mentioned to the owner the previous week that the amplifier was turned up too high. "I think we'll be seeing less problems from his amplifier," she said at the beginning of class. She was right. It was Stevie Wonder doing all the damage.

Was the high volume a coincidence? Revenge on his part? Wish I knew what was going on in his head. (Love the yoga teacher story, BTW. Great image.)

I'm glad he's not so loud. Let's hope he keeps it that way. Your teacher did a good job.