Although it is widely reported that the title refers to the sound of urine tinkling in a chamber pot, this is a later Joycean embellishment, lending an earthiness to a title first suggested by his brother Stanislaus and which Joyce (by the time of publication) had come to dislike: "The reason I dislike Chamber Music as a title is that it is too complacent", he admitted to Arthur Symons in 1906.
It's often stated that the title refers to the sound of urine dripping from a chamber pot, but this is an embellishment by Joyce. The initial idea was proposed by Stanislaus and later found unappealing by Joyce: "The reason I dislike Chamber Music as a title is that it is too complacent," he told Arthur Symons in 1906.