Kenneth Turan: ‘Note by Note’

Nothing is more ephemeral than a piano note sent out into the air, unless it’s a documentary that plays for one week in Los Angeles and then disappears. Such is the fate of “Note by Note: The Making of Steinway L1037,” a captivating film that will have its last local screenings tonight at the Laemmle Music Hall in Beverly Hills. This enriching film tells several involving stories: how a piano is made, what the satisfactions are for the workers who build these things by hand and, perhaps most poetic, how pianists pick instruments that suit them, a process that is very much like falling in love.