It is my first day practicing in a very long time, and I already have two noise complaints. I can already tell that this is the first of many incidents I will experience over the forthcoming months.

This is the first quiet apartment building I have inhabited. For the most part, the others have been loud: footsteps, parties, babies. Sure, it was a welcome change moving here, but now I see the price I pay for living in a complex with picky, private people.

In many ways, that first apartment building I lived in was a blessing. It was next door to a strip club, and, every Thursday, the people in the back hosted experimental jazz and dance concerts. I could practice whenever I wanted, and play music at unruly volumes at all hours of the night. Its only real problem was the steep learning curve in determining how to fall asleep with deep, repetitive bass drones in the background.