When music becomes noise

During the rehersal tonight with the Israeli amateur orchestra I play in, I reaslised how fortunate we are at home in Greve at the music school to be trained so well in good sound on our instruments, and that there's so much focus on noise and that we have to take care of our ears so we don't get hearing damages. Two things that really miss here!

I considered to sponser a SoundEar (see the picture), to make the orchestra aware of their own noise level - but then I also want a little sign next to it, saying "Thanks to Re'em JLM for sponsoring this great device, which made our rehersals so much nicer". [There are SO many of these "sponsered by ..." signs and memorables here, I think it's silly.] I had to use earplugs during the rehersal, something I never really need at home.

Oh, and we're also fortunate to have a good conductor, who clearly shows where which beats are. And she places them in down-strokes, not in up-strokes... (Which has confused me many times; where is the beat going to be?)

But otherwise it's a lovely orchestra with very sweet people. And I look forward to play with them, and try to play concerts also.