Sound-proofing a Room

[faulty_damper]

The people who live downstairs have started to complain about the music.  They have lived downstairs for at least two years and I have practiced well into the early mornings to hours as late as 3am but have now cut short my practice to before midnight for the past year or so.  And now for some reason he starts complaining about it.  First with a ring with the doorbell at 9:30pm to talk to my parents.  Then a few days later he banged on the ceiling at 10:15pm.  Then he complained some more when my mother came home one day.

So this guy is a bastard.  I can't practice with the floor shaking and some guy downstairs screaming!  So I am considering moving the piano into the dining room and having it sound-proofed.  This includes the walls and the floors.

What materials do I need to do this?  Are the sound-proofing materials expensive?

[willcowskitz]

Just empathizing with the bastard neighbour experience:


As the piano dealer that we purchased my piano from said; people who can't tolerate the sound of a piano should go live in the woods.

Recently, at 9:50pm, my downstairs neighbour came ringing my doorbell. I go open the door, there's an oldish lady taking her first glances at me, as I look back with a wondering expression on my face. She proceeds to start a flow of ugly words and other "powerful" expressions to explain the torment that my playing has forced her to go through.

"Don't you realize that we can hear it ?!!!!"
- "Well, I wouldn't annoy you on purpose would I"
"YES YOU DO!!!!" - starts backing off back to her hole
- "I do have my own motives for playing you know"


After this, I wrote a note and took it onto the message board, it went somewhat like this:

"If you're agitated by sounds from the piano, I would advise you to let me know in time so there's no need to come cursing at me later. Although the time of silence lasts from 10pm til 7am, I am - in all my flexibility - ready to negotiate practice times. I would also like to remind, that despite possible contrary rumours, my intention has not at any point been to purposelly irritate people.
  Sincerely, <name>"


I even left a "Suggestions" field down below, but nobody has come up with any great ideas so far, so I decided that its not my fault if some hag that's frustrated with her life is pissed off by my playing, as long as I play between 7am and 10pm. My dad also came over to build a soundproofing to the wall behind and floor beneath the piano, and since its a silent model, I can now practice at nights too.

[mound]

if you really wanted to, you could build a 2nd floor into the room, put a foot of air between the new floor and the one below, then put some thick carpet on the new floor upon which you can put the piano. Damping materials on the wall as well would help, but realize this will change the way the piano sounds to you if the sound isn't bouncing around in the room anymore.

[richard w]

If you are looking for somewhere to obtain soundproofing materials try below.

https://www.illbruck-sonex.com/

They may be able to give you details of distributors of your products which you could approach.

[janice]

I have a grand idea!!  We wouldn't have to worry about neighbors and all if we all lived together (like a frat house!! remember that thread?  maybe we should revive that thread again!!).   Hey, I was brainstorming so it's just an idea!

(Tash, can we have a picture on what we think this frat house would look like?!)

[dinosaurtales]

I have a grand idea!!  We wouldn't have to worry about neighbors and all if we all lived together (like a frat house!! remember that thread?  maybe we should revive that thread again!!).   Hey, I was brainstorming so it's just an idea!

(Tash, can we have a picture on what we think this frat house would look like?!)

Tsk Tsk.  Just picture this:  a frat house, with a grand piano in each of its 8 bedrooms, being played all at the same time (I assume we would all practice several hours a day each).  i am sure we would all kill each other eventually.  JANICE - can't you get that grace note pattern right YET!!!!  That's MOZART for gods sake!!   etc etc. 

[Ed Thomas]

I like the sound of the piano and I DO live in the woods.   

[pianonut]

Some piano tuners know how to come in and put in a little lever that you can pull (under the right side of your keyboard) that will cause a long piece of felt (cut two or three places to fit all on one piece of tin) that will go down and set between the hammers and the dampers.  Then you cannot be heard as much (like having the una chorda on automatically) and can play to your hearts content.

I used to live in southern california, and if i remember the name of the tuner (i think it was Borg Christiansen in or around Pasadena) that performed this adjustment for me.