Music to garden to

I'll have to have a little think about this, Fran, but (sad woman that I am), Roger Miller's "Little Green Apples" has just come to mind.

hmm, had forgotten about that one.

One that I do like is "I'll pick a rose for my Rose" - can't remember who by, I'll have to wade through my collection - but it's got a good beat and an aooriooriate title

I'll often take my radio out and listen to classic FM. Relaxing classics are the way to go...total chill out !!!

sigh, all my radios are mains-powered ... and the garden's so small that I worry about causing noise nuisance next door. Though Classic FM is one of the set buttons on my DAB radio.

I have two sets of mp3 headphones - much better than standard mp3 players, no wires to get int he way - one is loaded with bop, the other with classical. hmm, I seem to have forgoteen the classical one! maybe I'm in the habit of reaching for the "bop" set.

But I find I work better, or faster at least, if I have something to keep in time with, and there bop scores over Bach!

None, I like to hear the sounds of nature when I am working outside, the birds singing is music for me.

The only nature sounds round here are pigeons squabbling and squirels chittering - all to the background acoompaniment of traffic punctuated by sirens. And neighbours' arguing at the tops of their voices. And some twit in the block opposite who plays their [so-called] music at high volume. Putting the headphones on is one way to escape all that.

I'd swop all of that for genuine birdsone! In fact, one of my favourite channels on the digital radio was "bridsong radio" - had that on nearly all day and never tired of it. sigh, they've stopped that now, can't find it on any frequency, though apparently one can buy a CD of it

I agree moon grower nature best and there is nothing worse than having to put up with music which is not your choice, especially when it can come from both sides of the garden at once! Have to spend more time indoors than in the garden. I would not play music outside in consideration to my neighbours.

I am with Moon Grower. The sound of other people's music drives me insane.

That's why I use headphones, keep it to myself and it moves with me wherever I go. Where I used to live, I could always tell when the neighbour left the room and came back - the music would be turned right up, and then down again.

hmm, I have a lot of "nature sounds" on my pc - I love thunderstorms, or at least the sound of them. Never occured to me until just now that I could try those on the headphones; that'd be atmospheric!

Bulba and I have seen folk out walking in nature with headphones firmly plugged into their ears... I always wonder why?

Fran I realise we are fortunate to live in a rural area, though we also here all the noise of the local farmers. Listen to bird song or other nature music via your headphones if you can't stand the outside noise.

Know what you mean! When I'm in nature, I want to BE in nature, with all available senses plugged in. *s* It's like when I used to go camping; I'd be as basic as I could manage - what's the point of trying to get away from it all if you take it all with you?

it's not only "can't stand" - the music gives me energy, gets me moving in time with it - i'd probably take a lot longer to do manual stuff if I moped along at my own speed, and I'd think about how much my back was aching, which would slow me down even more.

Couldn't agree more with being at one with nature, but in January, there don't seem to be very many birds singing round here! It's as Fran says, a good beat gives you a rhythm to work with and stops you thinking about the backache!

and all we ever seem to get round here, year-round, or at least allt hat seems to make the noise, is stupid pigoens. not very musical!

Loads singing here, Gattina, specially around 3 am currently.
No music for me when gardening - I like to be totally connected with nature, the soil, the air and airborne natural sounds such as insects buzzing, grasshoppers chirping, birds flitting about, etc., even the satisfying sound the soil makes when you dig it over. I find music detracts from that, keeps you plugged in to the 'other', more materialistic, human world.

As I said on your blog Fran, mine depends on my mood and also which job I`m actually doing, I am always considerate as regards my neighbours so that comes into account also. I also stated that nature provided the best sounds for my gardening...
We are not all the same so can fully understand why some people do feel a need for music or noise of some sort besides that which is provided by nature.

The rythem of the wind, the creaking trees, the rustle of leaves, the patter of falling rain, bees buzzing, birds singing, thats got to be the most natural music you can listen to, however if i am in the house i just love to listen to the music of Sacred Earth, you just drift away to this most beautifull haunting music.

Just nature for me too, love your list Julien, I am quite moved when I hear the first swallow/house martin/swifts chirping in the sky, wonderful music to my ears.

I usually just listen to nature, but one of neighbours is in a choir and during the summer months when we have the doors and windows open, I listen to her beautiful alto voice when she is practicing.

lol Julien, the only way I'd hear any of the noises you list is if I loaded them on to my mp3 player!

I don't play music when I'm actually working with the plants, potting, rearranging displays, and so on - it's only when I'm doing clear-up, when a brisk pace gets the job done quicker and with a bit more vigour.

But when it comes to hands-in-dirt, I slooooooow right down; I don't mind going slow then, and taking time to breathe and enjoy what I'm doing and, basically, just *be*

I too, like peace and quiet when I'm in the garden, whether I'm working in it or just sitting in it. I get enough noise at work!!

neighbour arguments and discos and distant traffic apart, it's very quiet here - all to the good, peace and quiet is what I like most - but there are times when I need to gee myself up to do stuff, especially stuff that I don't really feel like doing, but which I know has to be done all the same.

I had not thought anyone listened to music while gardening! I like the sound of just nature when I garden so no music for me either.

I do love all kinds of music but in the garden for me I am happy to "go withthe flow " and my thoughts wander and I often find my self singing the most unlikely songs ! (Poor neighbours ). I do take the radio into the greenhouse though .

And now that I think about it, I do like loud music to do housework to - need a little oomph to get going for that, lol

I can understand the music for housework Bamboo - it's a chore and a bore, so anything that helps ... Gardening, however, is neither, so it's no music for me either when outside.

well, the kind of work I do in the garden when I have music is like housework outdoors! scrubbing the paving, cleaning windows ...*s*

Neither of which I would call 'gardening'... scrubbing the paving? Never done so since laid, sweep to remove the mess after we have use the patio and table thereon to pot up bulbs and other plants. Washing windows, well I do nag Bulba into washing occasionally but that isn't gardening in my book - outdoor house keeping!

Not for me..One of the nicest things to do is to enjoy a cup of tea and a slice of toast first thing in the mornig, outside and in peace.

As it goes i watched a program called myth busters . you hurd the myth about talking to plants to help them grow ? On this perticuler show they tested the myth . they set up about 5 identicle green houses in about the same area growing sweet peas. one was a controlie know noise of any sort . one talking nice one nice delicate music . the other 2 were realy heavymetal and screaming and abusive language . they and me expected it to be just a myth but it wasn't . the peas that did better bye far were actualy the heavy metal And the abuse . We were blown away bye the very obvious differents in growth . so play that punchy music as loud as you can . it depends on my mood and what I'm doing to weather i have music on . i often have friends round to socialize so play music . other times i just listen to the water fall and meditate . I have my back garden onone of my blogs if you'd care to look .

I've heard of similar experiments, but I seem to remember that they "proved" that classical music worked best.

And someone suggested that talking to the plants works because you exhale carbon dioxide over them, which plants breathe in by day, so it's like giving them an energy boost.

Another "myth" I heard was that if you stroke plant stems gently up and down several times a day between finger and thumb, the stem will grow stonger. It was explained that the movement of the stem between finger and thumb makes the plant think it's being blown in the wind, so it increases the stem growth to withstand them.

I'm with the 'nature listeners.' If I had my ears plugged up I would never hear the call of the short-toed eagles or buzzards; or hear the first cuckoo; or hear the delightful 'chatter' when martins meet at their nest; or hear the robin defending 'his' property. For me, music is delightful when I'm doing the ironing (which I hate with a passion!) so Adele, Elbow, Pavarotti, Tony Bennett and Stephane Grappelli get me through the wretched job! :o)

I to am with MG love to here the birds when out in garden mind you I live in the country its just perfect.

Frosty even frost now has furcoats :)

Extra layers

Very frosty Scotkat

oh, don't I wish that I were in a position to hear nature as it can be heard - and not at electornic second-hand, either! but, sigh, one is where one is, and how one is.

But classical music, soft and sweet, can enhance one's emotions and increase depth of feeling? (I'm a bit limited in that area, but thinking of Beethoven's Sixth - Pastoral. or Grieg's Morning.)

I want to get a small water feature when I can work out how to power it: don't fancy electric cables traling about, and don't get enough sun for a solar one (wonder if I can find a tiny one powered by Duracells??) - to me, a grden without the sound of moving water is only half alive. I don't mean a roaring, gushing waterfall - the gentle splash and chuckle of a tiny stream or minifall is all I need. At least that might be obtainable, even if nothing else is.

I ache for Nature
as she is meant to be heard:
sweet and wild and free.

*s* couldn't get that down to an "English haiku"!

Nature includes snails and slugs etc . i watched the programs experiment . definatly heavy metal and abuse worked best .

Wagner works well when knocking seven bells out of a frozen, stone-filled field! Delius when the work is over and the exhausting day is ending. Led Zeppelin or the Ride of the Valkyries when you are struggling to cut a dead tree down.
Birdsong alone is incomparable at 5.30 on a still, warm june morning as the sun rises and you are out with the watering-can and the morning star is still hanging over the horizon.....

I go with the rustle of trees and the birdsong, and go absolutely bananas if a neighbour has the "beat" on too loud. So my sweet peas will have to manage as best they can, they are not going to be treated to heavy metal and abuse even if they love it! I can't even stand next door's wind chimes dingling away.

Lol Stera...You sound like me.

Gattina: Agree on the Wagner, but Shostakovitch works as well - especially the Piano Concertos.

Oh Steragram I am so with you on wind chimes, they can drive mean demented. I'm sure well made ones are properly tuned but the ones I've heard just clink and clatter... not soothing at all, I'd rather listen to a bellowing cow or a cock crowing.

I'm not a great fan of metal windchimes - they alsways seem harsh and tinny. I have some (indoors at the moment) - mostly wood: one of small bamboo pieces that sounds like gently running water (when I first got it I kept going to see if I'd left a tap running till I found the cause!), one of coconut shell piees which rustles, and a larger bamboo one - that might stay indoors, at a window, as it's a bit harsh when it moves too much.

I do have one metal one, but it's more an AEolian harp - tuned lengths of metal. wonder if i can get a tune out of it?

I detest wind chimes. A friend of mine had to take her neighbours to court a few years ago because their wind chimes were driving her mad. They were a few feet from her bedroom window, but the neighbours slept in the front of the house and so never heard them. They refused to take them down but were instructed to at the court hearing. Shame things had to come to that.

Very sad Ginellie but I can understand why...

So can I. My sis had one in her front garden; one of the large bamboo ones. after one windy night, she found it missing, and thought that the wind had blown it away - till she saw that the rope holding it up had been cut claen through! One of her neighbours must have taken direct actoin after having had enough during that very windy night.

I've had my chimes up at my windows, and even in summer with the windows full open, not had a cheep out of them. I might get the odd rustle if they were outdoors, but I hope I'd not inflict them on anyone else to the extent where anyone needed to ask me to remove them. I would, of course.

Not that I think I will put them outdoors: none of them is weatherproofed, so they're likely to stay indoors. I might put a [silent!] mobile up outdoors, but think the chimes will stay in. if only they'd even give a faint rustle now and then ...

It is odd and interesting I can hear and ignore any natural sound if I am busy but one like wind chimes just gets to me... Ah well time to lay the sound to rest...

I REALLY hate windchimes - whoever thought them up should be hung along with 'em.

lol

I, too, do not put windchimes outside - I don't know if you've thought about it at all, but we get such a lot of wind now, even in high summer, that windchimes outside would be enough to cause murder I reckon. It's all very well on a stillish day to hear a faint tinkle or bonging every now and then, but constant dinging is really annoying. I have two sets of chimes, one's more a musical instrument, but both are inside, near the windows, and both were carefully selected for their lovely tones - some are horribly tinny and unmusical.

*s* I've never had tha chance to have chimes outdoors (other than suspended from the opener bar of my top-hinged upper windows on the 7th floor) but I think I feel about them the same way as I do about playing a radio outdoors - just cos I like it don't mean that anyone else will!

I get a lot of noise harassment from one particular tenant; she's very old and has dementia, she don't know what she's doing. Not her fault, but not mine either - and I'm the one who's kept awake till 5am on a farily regular basis. I'd not willingly take even ths slightest chance of doing that to someone else!

We are SO lucky not to live in close proximity to anyone else, not so much because of their noise, but so that I don't feel guilty when I have to turn the television up in order to hear it (I'm a bit Mutt & Jeff). Our worst invasive noises are 1) American airforce jets zooming down our valley, "buzzing" the treetops and the wildlife, 2) Youngsters on motocross bikes tearing up the countryside on warm summer evenings, 3) Very, very vociferous neighbours having angry family discussion over Sunday lunch (you would not believe the screaming and shouting and throwing of things) 4)Tractors and lorries - we're in a farming area, what should we expect to hear? 5) Hunters down in the valley at 6 in the morning, blasting the bejabers out of the local fauna. 6) Cockerels, who think it's dawn at about 1.30 every morning. 7) Luciano's hunting dogs up the hill who sound like something out of "Lady and the tramp", howling and yapping at 5.00 a.m.
8) Gianni, singing to his ducks as he feeds them.
Apart from that, it's peace, perfect peace. What more could you ask?

I do have to be careful about noise, being in flats - but I once lived under someone who suffered from schizophrenia - when he was ill, he would have the radio, the hifi and the tv on full blast 24/7. Fortunately, the electric fuse boxes were in the entrance hall, so I used to turn his power off around midnight and put it back on around 7.30 a.m. Naughty, but what could I do, he couldn't hear me banging on his door. I got a solicitor's letter warning me about it - I sent them a warning back with a recording of the noise. Never heard any more about it.

Oh, NIGHTMARE, Bamboo. I think you must have the patience and understanding of a saint.

I agree Gattina!

He was bonkers for 3 months before the police finally came for him, after he burnt my telephone wire on the outside of the house. BT came to fix it (they were funny, one tall and really thin, the other short and fat) but the guy upstairs kept chucking unmentionable liquids over them when they put the ladder against the house, so we had to call the police. I've never forgotten the copper's face when I said, in response to his saying, you don't want to press charges do you, on the contrary, of course I want to bring charges. He knew and I knew the chap was bonkers, and he also knew they'd have to arrest him to be charged. Black maria, 4 squad cars sealed off the street either end, police in riot gear and stab vests broke in to take him away because he wouldn't let them in. Poor bloke... he returned looking like a skeleton, very quiet and calm, 4 months later.

Sad but obviously necessary... sometimes sectioning someone is the best thing you can do to help them.

In the flat before the previous one, I had an upstairs neighbour who had some problem: the soundproofing was so thin that I could actually hear her put a plug into a wall socket: you can imagine the noise when she put her radio on the floor and turned it up to full blast. She'd regularly smash her place up (strange that she only smashed her windows and the furniture, never the TV, she wasn't that daft); I had the police out about three times a fortnight.

When I complained to the council, I was told "We're trying to find her a social worker", and I said, "You'd better find two, because I'm going to need one before much longer". It wasn't her fault, but that didn't stop the fallout descending on me and everyone else in the block.

One can only be patient and tolerant and understanding up to a certain point: I hoped that if I complained often enough, the council would do something.

I did take direct action once - I'd called the poice at about one am, they arrived about one-thirty, and she shut up; until about two, when she started again. I took a brook upstairs and smashed the window on her front door, screaming "turn that **** off! I'll *** kill you!" (My throat was raw the next day, so i really must have screamed as hard as I could.)

I think I shocked myself as much as her! I realised what I'd done and legged it back downstairs - I was so shaken that I actually phoned the police to tell them what I'd done, but they hung up - good thing, I think, because if they'd taken official note they'd have had to nick me.

It shook me, I've never done anything like that before and hope I never will again. Later that day, several people in the block told me they were behind me: I said, "Don't tell me, tell the council!"

I only had to put up with it for about two years before I got rehoused. and *s* the next flat had upstairs neighbours that used to train elephants to tap-dance at two am! sigh, but this is "care in the community" in action, govt saving money by closing dedicated mental health units.

Well , what srories !
Gattina , I think some of those sounds you revel in .
Bamboo , I think I might have run away .
Franl , hope that you have recovered !

Ha ha! I guess if I hadn't had two children, I probably would have done...

lol that was about fifteen years ago, Driad - but I'm still a tad sesitive to other people's noise, which is why I'm a bit paranoid about being the cause of noise for other people - *s* late at night, I'll turn the TV down a bit at atime, so much that I suddenly realise that I have to lean forward in my chair to hear it! so it goes back up a bit, but still fairly low.