This has been a long time coming. So, forgive me for ranting. I have nothing against music but I think the choice, volume and timing is personal.
When I’m in a public space wherein I have the choice to step out or never venture into that place again if the music is too loud or just not to my liking, I don’t feel I have the right to complain because I can choose not to be there.
It’s a different thing when music intrudes into your personal space, like your home — when you don’t have the choice not to be there. When loud, blaring music is played into the night or even during the day or when the off-key singing of someone who believes their voice is worthy of being amplified to the entire neighborhood disrupts your sleep or your working hours.
This was the case when neighbors decided to converge every Saturday to sing to their heart’s delight while imbibing alcohol in quantities too much for their own good. They would start at mid-afternoon and continue all the way till late-afternoon.
When our security approached them nicely and requested them to lower the volume of their voices, you’d imagine they’d do the neighborly thing and turn the volume down. Well, they didn’t. They cranked it up.
Despite repeated pleas for them to lower the volume, they stood their ground and asserted their right to sing. This went on for weeks. They did have the right to sing. But they didn’t have the right to sing and amplify their voices so as to disturb the entire neighborhood. After all, does no one know how to sing, now, without a microphone?
They challenged us to call the cops. Well, we called someone better — their boss, who, unknown to them, was a very close family friend. And that’s how it ended.
They were not the first and I’m sure they won’t be the last karaoke that will cause noise pollution. There’s also the neighborhood disco. One time, the music was blaring all the way till late in the evening that when a downpour came, I rejoiced. God, I felt, had heard my prayers.
And there are the marching bands that seriously threaten our sanity. Would you believe they march by our house as early as four in the morning? They also used to camp out, right by our building to practice — completely upending all our plans to enjoy quiet, lazy Sunday afternoons.
Can’t these bands practice elsewhere? In an open field, in a gym or arena where they can practice all they want without disturbing anyone? How does marching through the streets, passing through commercial or residential areas, be okay, at any time of the day?
But this one takes the cake.
Last year, the day before the Grand Santo Niño Procession, I was quietly working at my desk when thunderous music suddenly blared out of loudspeakers in the dead of the night. The bass was so strong, I felt the vibration go through our building.
I was about to go down and investigate when I heard my niece, one floor below me, scream outside her window. It was quite effective. The music stopped immediately. Upon investigation, some guys had the bright idea to test the loudspeakers at midnight.
Don’t we, ordinary citizens, have some protection from these idiots who think it’s okay to blast music out of loudspeakers in the dead of the night? Isn’t there some ordinance that penalizes this kind of public disturbance?
Is the government aware that loud noise or music is a public health hazard? It doesn’t just cause conflicts among neighbors, permanent hearing loss, changes in blood pressure and heart rate but also triggers mental health conditions by increasing stress and anxiety and disrupting sleep.
If you’re on the edge, loud music will push you off that edge.