<p>Ah, does this bring back memories…my younger brother played the drums when we were in high school…and we lived in a townhouse with a shared common wall with our neighbors. On top of that, we lived in a HOT! HUMID! city and neither we nor our neighbors had air-conditioning, so we had to keep the windows open in the summer or everyone would melt.</p>
<p>Solutions: practice when they weren’t home! Also practice using something he called “practice pads” when they were home.</p>
<p>Writer/educator John Holt (in his wonderful book “Never too late”) talks extensively about all the things he tried when he was playing the cello in his Boston apartment. Eventually he took a part-time job in a nearby private school motivated largely by his desire to find a practice space (he was given a key to the school and allowed to come in early to practice before school.)</p>
<p>Is there any possibility your son could work out some kind of barter arrangement that would give him access to a place to practice where he wouldn’t be disturbing anybody? (Like maybe caretaking/petsitting/plantwatering for traveling friends away for the summer who have an isolated house with no nearby neighbors? )</p>