When, how, and why did the idea that music has to be loud to be any good get started?  More to the point, when did people start to think that it was their civic duty to inflict their music on complete strangers, whether or not these people wanted to hear it?

I object to people who play loud music in public places – on the street, in their cars with the windows open, in parking lots, and so on – on several grounds.  First, it is annoying, just as annoying as if people shouted all the time (which they will probably have to do before long since they will have destroyed their hearing with loud music).  Second, it is intrusive; it intrudes upon what little tranquility we can get in an increasingly cacophonous world.  Third, it abuses one of the finest gifts that mankind has – the ability to create music.

Although the devotees of rock and rap are no doubt the worst offenders with respect to loud music, I am not here criticizing the music itself.  One person's rhapsody is another person's noise.   I am criticizing the volume.  Any music played constantly at a decibel level of a herd of a thousand elephants trumpeting at once ceases to be music.  It is noise.

I acquired much of my early appreciation of music by playing in a 125-piece band.  Since I wasn't a very accomplished musician, I sat deep in the bowels of that organization, squarely in front of the percussion section, not far from the tubas, with the bells of the french horns facing backward in my direction.  I know what loud music is.  Or at least I did until the amplified din that passes for music today began to be inflicted upon me by every inconsiderate cretin with a boombox or a car stereo.

I also have to wonder how young ears can tolerate such bombardment, especially when it is constant.  Is what I'm hearing in the air representative of what they're inflicting upon themselves with those headphones plastered against their heads, no doubt rattling the fragile bones of the inner ear?  I know that my hearing is not what it used to be; it's a natural consequence of aging.  Yet I've been subjected to music played so loud at a distance of 100 yards or more from me that I've wanted to run as fast as possible in the other direction.  With that stuff bouncing around inside my head, I couldn't think straight.  Maybe that's what their problem is.

The only comfort I have is that these morons will soon enough not be able to hear much of anything.  They will have destroyed one of their five senses before they are old enough or mature enough to appreciate the subtleties and contrasts that make much of the world's music so enjoyable.  The only sounds they will be able to detect with any certainty will be jackhammers, sirens, and explosions.  Sadly, they will probably be happy that way.

If noise is music to your ears, so be it.  But don't inflict it on me.