The position about pubs is very very simple.


Anything with an electrical amplifier (including juke boxes and big screen TVs), subject to one complication which I will mention below, needs regulation between 6 pm and 8 am. This is because the theoretical possibility of control of noise by other means in practice simply does not guarantee a peaceful night's sleep or the ability to put children to bed. Amplified sound should not be audible in the nearest dwelling between those hours.


Anything without an amplifier needs no such regulation, no matter what the time of day or night. Maurauding troupes of players of the Highland great pipes, or Japanese drummers, are so rare that they can be left to other means of control. Even trumpets are not in practice significantly audible through two sets of brick walls - the pub's and the dwelling's.


Only amplified sound brings disorderly behaviour in its wake - and the worst type for this is recorded music since attenders are not there to appreciate the music but as part of mating rituals.



The complication is that occasionally instruments may need low-power amplification to be heard with other unamplified instruments. An autoharp or most appalachian dulcimers, or portable keyboards (which have built-in low-power amplifiers) are in this class. So long as they are played at the same level of sound as unamplified instruments with them, or the unamplified voice, they do not need regulation.