I’ve lived in apartments/rentals the vast majority of my life. I’ve played an instrument for about 15 years, and about 85-90% of that time coincided with the rental life. I cannot express properly how miserable that is for anyone claiming to be a musician. Sure, there are countless people who play an instrument in an apartment and either A) don’t give a fuck or B) luck out – but I am not one of them. I’ve had noise complaints, had the “e” word thrown out early on (that’s “eviction” in case you’re curious), and also have a lovely wife that I don’t want to piss off.
It all adds up to years and years of minimal noise. In most cases playing with headphones or no amp at all. It’s frustrating. Frustrating to the point where you want to sell all your gear because you overreact and assume life will never change. Thankfully I did not do that.
Even better, the misery is ending, tomorrow. We finally settled on both an area and a specific place and are moving into our first house in a few days. It’s grand, as we are in the part of the country that has basements. This means, at minimum, I have a dark and quiet place to go turn my amp up and make actual noise. The more likely scenario, is that if we survive winter without any weird foundation surprises, there will be a music room built with some good sound isolation. Which means the amp goes to 11.
I am rather excited about this, more excited than anything I can recall in recent history. Now I just have to remember how to play with a respectable level of competence once again.