We have a neighbor with this car. It’s got one of those mufflers that don’t muffle but that make the car louder (and tougher) sounding. The neighbor must work on his car 40 hours a week in his driveway. Often he listens to thrash rock while he does so. Probably the worst part is when he starts up the damn thing in the mornings and warms it up for 10 minutes. Sounds like a helicopter is landing in our front yard. Annoying.
Behind us, down a little hill, are some people with a pool. It’s summertime and they use it a lot. Our windows are open. Kids splashing and screaming. Fine. No problem. But they also have a boom box going the whole time, for hours and hours. It’s not that loud, really. But you hear the thump, thump, thump of the bass which causes you to ponder whether your life is worth living. Problem.
The refrigerator hum is kind of annoying, don’t you think? Especially when you’re listening to quatuors à cordes in the living room. So is the air-conditioning toggling on and off all the time. Not so bad if you’re not listening to music or watching your stories on the telly, but bad when you are.
Leaf blowers are grating, especially at 7 in the morning. I rather like the sound of a power lawn mower, though, especially in the distance. I love the sound of those Rain Bird rotating lawn sprinklers that go back and forth — chk … chk … chk …tsh, tsh, tsh, tsh — either close at hand or far away. One of my all-time favorite sounds is the whoosh of distant traffic heard through the bedroom window at night. There’s rain, of course, on the plus side, but I do live in California.
Ryan J. Huxtable has surmised that Beethoven, in addition to deafness, suffered from hyperacusis, or “a painful sensitivity to sounds.” It’s pretty common with people with hearing problems, actually. I don’t think I have that, but I am definitely more sensitive than the average person to ambient noise.
There’s this person at work with an annoying voice, but everyone thinks it’s annoying. There are some clocks in our bedroom that sound like Indiana Jones punching a Nazi over and over to me, late at night. Gsh. Gsh. Gsh. I usually put the one closest to me face down on the floor and that takes care of it.
Music in restaurants is almost invariably annoying to me. My ear gravitates to it, and usually it’s awful. Not long ago I was away on vacation, out in the country, and we stopped by one of our favorite little eateries. I mean, it’s perfect. I was in a good mood, and hungry, looking forward to the meal. Serenity showered down upon me from the heavens as we walked in. It’s a little place — we were shown to a table near the kitchen. The cook was listening to Andrea Bocelli. Oh God.
We have a family joke. When we pull up alongside of a car blaring music with the windows down, one of us invariably utters “Thanks for sharing” just loud enough for us to hear. I didn’t say it was much of a joke.
When we lived in Los Angeles, behind our apartment was this guy who (also) worked on his car constantly. He apparently didn’t have anything better to do. His garage was set up as elaborately as a professional mechanic’s. He even had some sort of lift. Inside the garage, the stereo was always going, and it was pointed right at our bedroom window.
The guy would get drunk and go into his apartment to sleep it off and leave his stereo on. Like at 1 in the morning. I went over there a few times and just turned the stereo off myself.
I went over there after midnight one time. He was nowhere in sight, the stereo blasting. I turned it off, grabbed one of his nice tools and threw it in a garbage bin. I still get a kick out of that story.
classical life 
Thanks for making me laugh. Love the last story. Especially the end of it. I will carry the thought of you tossing a tool in the trashcan the next time I’m forced to suffer some fool. And laugh again.
That little you tube video fits in perfectly. The very last comment from the pear is priceless.
What is thrash rock? I’m not familiar with that genre. At least not by name. Although I think I know what you mean.
I, too, am persecuted by refrigerators, clocks and leaf blowers, the latter being one of the most annoying and wasteful inventions on the face of the planet. (What ever happened to the rake?) I feel your pain.
Andrea Bocelli I can handle. He’s at least better than Andre Rieu!
Everything is relative. My son tells me that I am the only one he knows who blasts the neighborhood with classical music when I drive. I never realized that my radio was that loud until he told me that he could hear me coming from halfway down the street. (On a quiet night. We don’t have much traffic where we live.)
Live and let live; à chacun son goût .
Thrash metal is rock of a type of heavy metal genre that is very loud, fast, and aggressive. Think Anthrax and Metallica. Not what anyone wants blasting through one’s bedroom window at 1am, nights in a row, that’s for sure.
Love the Annoying Orange video!
The Annoying Orange videos are big in our household right now. There are dozens. Check out “Wazzup”.
I am sure glad there is no loud dog nearby, too! The only good thing I can think of is to write a “symphony” with all the sounds you have described, and call it “Cacophony, a Sign of Our Times”
Hang in there!
Thanks for making me smile, Tim. Happy Friday to you. Laura
Would you give up hearing all those aural annoyances if it meant also no longer listening to the music you enjoy?
Nope.
David, that’s an odd question (but I sense that maybe you were just being playful with a “what if” thought). Are you implying that one should be grateful one isn’t deaf and to just put up with annoying sounds?
As a person with congenital hearing loss (I use hearing aids), I am increasingly negatively affected by aural annoyances. It’s a quality of life issue.
MM – I do remember writing the phrase “How about this thought experiment” at the start of my comment but I erased it. Tim wrote a fine, amusing essay and he made me realize that his life is much more filled with annoying sounds than mine is. Or he lets himself be bothered by them more.
But I may have thought that he was complaining a bit too much. After all, he is someone who is paid to listen to music and then to write about it. We do live in an era where other peoples music is often intrusive – and writing about how to deal with that is certainly a useful topic for a music critic. Maybe more widely applicable than writing about how good a particular concert was.
I have my own ways of coping with annoying music and sounds. I bring out my iPod when the muzak turns to, say, Willie Nelson or Joni MItchell- two of my all time least faves. It’s great fun when the thumping bass of the car driving by is in the same key as the Scarlatti or Bach in my headphones. At home I often listen to two (or three) radio stations at the same time; sometimes the combination is a lot more interesting than one alone. My wife has had to ask “Is this one station or two?”
Thanks to technology music can be anywhere at any time – not just in concert halls. And any sound can be music – either via sampling technology or via Cagian philosophy. Listening to the way all that sound and music mixes together ought to be a lot of fun.
So, yes, I am implying that one should be grateful for not being deaf. And I do understand that your hearing aids can make it harder to filter music out of the background noise – and I sympathize with that. But I am also suggesting that annoying sounds are actually music too – and can be enjoyed as music – with the proper mind set.
That’s what I think. But then I also thought I could respond to your comment with one sentence.
Thanks for the interesting reply, David. I guess we will simply have to agree to disagree because I still don’t accept the need for cacophony. People with perfect hearing are also bothered by too much noise, so it’s not just people like me, who wear hearing aids. But if you’re personally happy dealing with the noise, then you’re happy. That’s you.
As for getting paid to listen to and write about music (which is an oversimplification of Tim’s work), I don’t understand why that would make it OK for the person to have to accept extraneous noise. Tell a cook that he’s paid to have to happily accept the smell and taste of McDonald’s every day and I’m pretty sure he would balk at the idea (including one who works at McDonald’s). I don’t think one has to like it.
Also, being grateful one’s not deaf and should accept too much unpleasant noise… isn’t that like telling a person whose legs are in constant pain, “You’re lucky you have legs at all.” It’s a bit insensitive, don’t you think? Yes, they are still lucky to have their legs, but should receive some sympathy for their pain, nonetheless.
I laughed out loud when reading the part about the cook listening to Andrea Bocelli. My sentiments exactly! The sound of that voice has certainly curbed my appetite, on more than one occasion,