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Copyright (c) 2005 Greensboro News & Record
EVELYN SMITH Business: Owner of Noteworthy Piano Service, Greensboro Born: Dec. 17, 1954, in Richmond, Va. Moved to Gaston County, N.C., in 1964 Education: B.A. in art history, UNC-Chapel Hill; certificate in piano tuning and repair, Central Piedmont Community College, Charlotte. Additional training from Steinway and Yamaha and annual seminars sponsored by the Piano Technicians Guild. Family: Husband, Steve Sumerford, assistant director of Greensboro Public Library; mother, Alice Smith; father, Emerson Smith (deceased); twin brothers, Stuart and Bolling WANT TO GO? What: Chamber music concert, featuring Dmitry Sitkovetsky, Greensboro Symphony Orchestra music director and violinist; pianist Jeffrey Biegel; and orchestra musicians Fabrice Dharamraj, Steve Harper, Maureen Michels and Marcia Riley. When: 8 tonight Where: UNCG School of Music recital hall, West Market and McIver streets, Greensboro Tickets: $25, $5 with student ID Information: 335-5456, Ext. 223; Greensboro Coliseum box office; Tickets.com outlets at participating Triad Lowes Foods stores; www.tickets.com; or (888) 397-3100 What: Greensboro Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Dmitry Sitkovetsky with guest pianist Jeffrey Biegel. When: 8 p.m. Saturday Where: War Memorial Auditorium, Greensboro Coliseum Complex, 1921 W. Lee St., Greensboro Tickets: $20-$35, $5 with student ID Information: 335-5456, Ext. 223; Greensboro Coliseum box office; Tickets.com outlets at participating Triad Lowes Foods stores; www.tickets.com; or (888) 397-3100 Etc.: The orchestra will perform George Gershwin's "American in Paris" and Antonin Dvorak's Symphony No. 9 in E minor; Biegel will join the orchestra for Gershwin's Piano Concerto in F.
PIANO TERMS Tuning: Adjusting the piano's strings to the correct pitch or frequency. Pianos are tuned to the international pitch standard of A-440 cycles per second. If the pitch is higher, it is considered sharp. If lower, it is considered flat. Voicing: Adjusting the piano's tone or quality of sound after tuning. Regulation: Adjusting mechanical parts to ensure that they align correctly and that the piano's action responds evenly to the pianist's touch. All rights reserved. No part of this story may be sold, published or included in any information storage and retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher. To return to the list of stories your search generated, use your browser's Back button The Greensboro News & Record.
THE KEY TO BEAUTIFUL MUSIC
Date: February 25, 2005 Edition(s): ALL Page: D1 Section: LIFE Dateline: GREENSBORO Evelyn Smith runs her fingers up and down the keys on the Steinway concert grand. Three, four, five notes catch her ear's attention. "Can you hear a difference there?" she asks. Hmmm. Not sure. Think so. After 20 years of fine-tuning her ear and her skills, this piano technician can hear the slightest variation, spot a hammer a sliver of an inch off. Smith slides out the piano's "action" - the complex system of levers, springs and hammers connected to the keyboard - to reach the wool-felt-covered hammers that strike the strings. She changes the felt's density with her "voicing tool," essentially a weighted wooden handle with a fine needle attached. She replaces the action and repeats the scales. The notes' tones blend with the others. The Steinway concert grand piano at Greensboro College is ready for its next show. n n n At Greensboro College, Greensboro Symphony Orchestra and many other area concerts, Smith is the unseen artist, invisible to the audience but critical to a pianist's successful performance. The public thinks of her as the "piano tuner." But piano technicians do much more than tuning, or adjusting the piano's strings to the correct pitch or frequency. Her work combines the mechanics with the art of influencing the instrument's sound and feel. "My job is to give them the most responsive and expressive piano I possibly can so it responds to anything they want to do and it can express what they want the music to express," Smith says. She ensures that mechanical parts align correctly and that the piano's action responds evenly to the pianist's touch, a service called "regulation." After tuning, she performs "voicing," adjusting the piano's tone or quality of sound. She can recondition a piano, cleaning and lubricating it, as well as repairing or replacing worn parts. She can even rebuild a piano's action. "Pianos are organic instruments," Smith says. "The wood and the felt and the materials change with humidity and wear. My job is to keep taking it back to the way it was when it left the factory, or better." It's a job she does for the Greensboro Symphony Orchestra, Music for a Great Space, the Bel Canto Company, Greensboro College, Guilford College, Bennett College, the Music Academy of North Carolina, Holy Trinity Music School, more than 30 private piano teachers and lots of churches and private homes. This week, the Greensboro Symphony Orchestra has her ear. Renowned pianist Jeffrey Biegel has come to town to perform George Gershwin's Piano Concerto in F with the orchestra. n n n Pianos are sensitive instruments that change with humidity and temperature. Wrestling them back into top shape is physically demanding. After a day of tightening and loosening strings, stretching, pulling, bending and crawling, Smith's shoulders and arm hurt. "That's why I swim and do yoga," she says. "I don't think I could do this job if I didn't." Pianos like 42 percent relative humidity, much like humans. Dryness can cause a piano's pitch to go flat; moisture can make it go sharp. Swings in relative humidity can crack or distort soundboards. Extreme dryness can weaken glue joints. Smith faced and fixed a pronounced pitch problem several years ago, when she filled in as piano technician for a double piano concerto at the Eastern Music Festival. The two pianos had to be precisely in tune with each other. The pitch on one was close to correct. But the other had spent a night in a hot truck; it was 25 percent flat. Pianos don't like to be moved in pitch much at one time, but Smith had no choice; the concert was hours away. "I remember working like a dog for hours, and I was extremely relieved when it was over," she says. Her most dramatic moments came before a Greensboro Symphony concert in Elon. She had tuned the piano earlier; the artist checked it, pronounced it fine and said she could leave. Less than an hour before the 8 p.m. concert, her phone rang. Something has broken on B flat below middle C, a frantic symphony production manager said. She raced from Greensboro to Elon. With the orchestra on stage and the audience filing in, she and production manager Vito Ciccone took the piano apart. She fixed the key with Super Glue, put it all back together, played the note and packed her tools to the orchestra's applause. It was 8:05 p.m. n n n Smith has been preparing pianos for soloists with the Greensboro Symphony Orchestra for nine years. "These are people who can take full advantage of a piano," Smith says. "It's like having a piano used by a race car driver. They want maximum power, speed, control and evenness." She understands the challenge Biegel and other traveling pianists face. Unlike musicians who bring their own violins and cellos, clarinets and oboes, Biegel sits down at a new instrument dozens of times a year in concert halls around the globe. His role is to articulate what he needs the piano to do. For Gershwin's Piano Concerto in F, Biegel says, "I want the sound of the piano to project through the orchestra to the audience without being swallowed up by the orchestra - not harshly projecting; just a good, rich, sonorous sound." To give that to him, Smith spends much of Tuesday at War Memorial Auditorium. Hours before Biegel's first rehearsal with music director Dmitry Sitkovetsky and the orchestra, Smith sits down at the concert grand sent by the Winston-Salem Steinway dealer for the performance. She checks the hall's humidity, then tunes the piano and checks and adjusts its regulation and voicing. She watches and listens intently as Biegel rehearses. "Sounds good," she says. Biegel asks for two minor adjustments. Smith makes them during another tuning before Wednesday's rehearsal. She tunes the piano again before Thursday and Saturday concerts. She won't have to worry about Biegel's chamber music concert tonight at UNCG; the university has its own piano technician. Come show time at War Memorial, Smith will sit in the audience or stand just off-stage, listening as if her ear is on stage. "If you are a technician for a major concert and you are not at least a little bit nervous, you probably don't have a pulse," she says. "You are in a situation where everything is live. You don't know what is going to happen." In a three-movement concerto, the first movement is often fast and loud. The second movement is quieter. "After that, I take my first deep breath," she says. "If I get through the quiet movement and I am pleased, I know I am home free." Contact Dawn DeCwikiel-Kane at 373-5204 or dkane@news-record.com Illustration: Photos Memo: PIANO NOTES 88 keys on the piano 220-240 strings on the piano More than 9,000 moving parts Twice a year servicing recommended by most manufacturers for a home pianoEVELYN SMITH Business: Owner of Noteworthy Piano Service, Greensboro Born: Dec. 17, 1954, in Richmond, Va. Moved to Gaston County, N.C., in 1964 Education: B.A. in art history, UNC-Chapel Hill; certificate in piano tuning and repair, Central Piedmont Community College, Charlotte. Additional training from Steinway and Yamaha and annual seminars sponsored by the Piano Technicians Guild. Family: Husband, Steve Sumerford, assistant director of Greensboro Public Library; mother, Alice Smith; father, Emerson Smith (deceased); twin brothers, Stuart and Bolling WANT TO GO? What: Chamber music concert, featuring Dmitry Sitkovetsky, Greensboro Symphony Orchestra music director and violinist; pianist Jeffrey Biegel; and orchestra musicians Fabrice Dharamraj, Steve Harper, Maureen Michels and Marcia Riley. When: 8 tonight Where: UNCG School of Music recital hall, West Market and McIver streets, Greensboro Tickets: $25, $5 with student ID Information: 335-5456, Ext. 223; Greensboro Coliseum box office; Tickets.com outlets at participating Triad Lowes Foods stores; www.tickets.com; or (888) 397-3100 What: Greensboro Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Dmitry Sitkovetsky with guest pianist Jeffrey Biegel. When: 8 p.m. Saturday Where: War Memorial Auditorium, Greensboro Coliseum Complex, 1921 W. Lee St., Greensboro Tickets: $20-$35, $5 with student ID Information: 335-5456, Ext. 223; Greensboro Coliseum box office; Tickets.com outlets at participating Triad Lowes Foods stores; www.tickets.com; or (888) 397-3100 Etc.: The orchestra will perform George Gershwin's "American in Paris" and Antonin Dvorak's Symphony No. 9 in E minor; Biegel will join the orchestra for Gershwin's Piano Concerto in F.
PIANO TERMS Tuning: Adjusting the piano's strings to the correct pitch or frequency. Pianos are tuned to the international pitch standard of A-440 cycles per second. If the pitch is higher, it is considered sharp. If lower, it is considered flat. Voicing: Adjusting the piano's tone or quality of sound after tuning. Regulation: Adjusting mechanical parts to ensure that they align correctly and that the piano's action responds evenly to the pianist's touch. All rights reserved. No part of this story may be sold, published or included in any information storage and retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher. To return to the list of stories your search generated, use your browser's Back button The Greensboro News & Record.
