I've talked with my neighbors and told them to let me know if the music is ever too loud. Sometimes practice gets a little noisy and I am not opposed to postponing work in order to comply with a neighbor's need for peace and quiet.
After relaying my willingness to shut off the amps whenever need be, my neighbor's response surprised me. She said she purposefully exited her house when we played. She would sit on her porch and listen. When the complex was full she would drag her neighbors outside to listen with her. Not only did she and her daughters enjoy the music, they made a point to let me know how excited they were to hear me singing after I'd finally set up a microphone.
As wonderful as they were about the noise, I was positive such enthusiasm couldn't last forever.
We had finished practicing the opening series of songs for our upcoming set. The last chord was struck and the final crash rang out from the drums. No sound was emanating from any instrument or mic --- and a vibration still shook the floor under my feet.
I heard a piece of furniture strike the ground and the steady pounding of what sounded like a jackhammer on a metal plate.
I rushed down the stairs to find my dogs cowering in fear, so frightened by whoever seemed to be trying to put their fist through my front door they'd knocked over a chair I'd set in the hallway. I was already apologizing before my hand reached the doorknob.
I threw open the door expecting to find a neighbor with a sick, crying infant. Instead, three police officers (three-fourths of my town's law enforcement ) crowded my front porch. Each having their own set of wheels, it looked like some kind of bust---all those police cars lining the street---blocking my only means of escape: the disgruntled white ford van I hadn't used in months. I kept my cool and remained pleasant, even though the officer who had been beating my door
immediately began to insult me for how loud the music was. I hadn't had time to remove my ear plugs ( I haven't always worn them during practices, but after many years of playing my ears have finally let me know how loud of an instrument the drums are) and the first thing he said to me was something along the lines of "if my music was at a proper volume I wouldn't have to use earplugs." I can't blame him for that cheap shot. The lawman just didn't know the dynamics of live music - it's not as easy to quiet a real drummer as it is to turn down your stereo. He then proceeded to let me know if I wanted to play music I needed to move out into the middle of the country where there was no one around, how one of the officers driving by could hear the music with the windows up in his vehicle, how they could hear it pretty clearly in the park across the road, etc. I looked at the other two officers for verification, neither of them seemed to be as upset as the man immediately to my left. I barely had time to read their expressions
when the officer sternly told me, like a father upset with a distracted child, to pay attention to him because he was the one speaking.
" Don't look at them. I'm speaking to you, now," were his exact words I believe. I smiled and turned back to the aggressor. I explained to him that I wasn't just playing music to make noise, but that I was part of a serious band in need of practice. I drew him out, asking him if it would be possible to set up a system to warn me if anyone
had complained about the noise, so we could stop before he had to drag himself over to my house. There wasn't a chance to explain that I'd lived in another town where you could register a party so if anyone called in to complain, the station would call an appointed person at the registered address before sending out a squad car. This particular policeman didn't seem interested in helping me, and dismissed the notion before any discussion could take place. As the "conversation" wore on, he began to cool off and took on a more pleasant tone.
It became obvious, after I'd told him I'd talked to all my neighbors and they not only didn't mind the music, they listened to it whenever they had the chance, that the man was more upset that he'd been pounding on my door for ten minutes without an answer than he was about me practicing with my band. The other officers had left the porch and were hanging out by their vehicles some yards away, disinterested in the outcome of the situation.
As the officer remaining began to make it clear he was ready to head back to his own car, I asked politely when the complaint call came in,
surprised that anyone minded the noise at 3 o'clock in the afternoon on a weekday. Again I was surprised, shocked even,at his response.
I was clueless to the reason the police officer kept repeating the same two words after each of my inquiries up until this point. Every time I tried to reason away the volume of our music, he'd say something about the town's sound ordinance.
Only after I'd asked about the complaint did the officer make it clear.
" There was no complaint. There's a sound ordinance. When there's something like you were doing, we have to stop."
This was the point where he told me he didn't think the music was bad. By his tone and body language, the information he confided about the sound ordinance was his way of saying, while still trying to retain an air of authority:
" I'm sorry I had to stop you, I'm just doing my job."
While the immediate experience wasn't all bad---the officer had been upset at first but by the end showed himself to be a human being and sympathetic to my situation---the implications of what transpired between us made the experience worse than ever.
There was no complaint. These proclaimed protectors/servants of the peace are required to seek out any noise they deem unfit for the community at large and silence it. As the officer made clear, he didn't mind the music. It didn't disagree with him or his fellow officers. They convinced themselves that the volume of our music necessitated the suppression and oppression of my creativity without any opposition from any one of my neighbors or even the officers themselves. The police invaded my porch and sent my dogs into hiding to for their own peace of mind. Regardless of how they personally felt or how anyone within earshot personally felt about the decibel level of the tunes, they had to do it because they had to. No provocation required. This broke my heart. A few hours passed and I still was having trouble with the incident. Finally, it hit me.
I wondered, if during the time Hitler was in power, if the majority of the nazi police force justified their actions by the excuse that they were "just doing their job" whenever they were instructed to gas or shoot jews.
The comparison is extreme, but the basic principles are the same: whether it's violent antisemitism enforced by the third-reich or a "sound-ordinance" enforced by the local police, when individuals in charge of protecting the community are required to silence or get-rid-of a specific person, place, or thing without obvious provocation of the immediate community or the community at large by that specific person, place or thing, the society under such law is no longer founded on the principles of freedom and equality.
I wonder, sometime in the near future, if an officer of the law drove by me and didn't like the way I smelled for whatever reason, if he would be required to strip me naked and hose me off in the middle of the street because of an "odor ordinance."
"Just doing my job. Sorry the water's so cold."