Victoria Chiang | Student Comments

Gwendolyn Fisher
Peabody class of '05

I came to Peabody as a freshman, stuck up and with a bad attitude. Chicago has a good music scene, and I had grown up around kids who went off to college at Juilliard or Curtis, or who got symphony jobs straight out of CIM. No one I knew went to Peabody—it was unheard of, and therefore bad. But I went there anyway, to study with Vicky for a year before transferring to another school.

I had studied with Vicky in Aspen, the summer before my senior year of high school. I was the less good of the two high school kids she took, and was giddy the whole summer by how new and cool everything was. But I came away from it confused, because while Vicky and I got along really well, she was different from my high school violin teacher, and that was weird. She was impressed by things my high school teacher took for granted, like memorization and scales, and she didn't scare me into practicing in the same way. She didn't say any of the same catch phrases, she talked about "fixing" different things. I knew I couldn't stay with my high school teacher forever, but studying for a summer with someone else made me nervous about college.

I ended up getting into the schools I had wanted to, but not with any of the teachers... except Peabody with Vicky. All I knew of the other teachers were rumors, while Vicky sent me an email, asking if I was serious about Peabody, and saying in what ways she thought she could help me. Just the email was comforting and supportive, and a little magical: "Gwen, I think you could be a great player." I was worried that she wouldn't push me as hard as my high school teacher would; I was worried that I would hate Peabody. I was worried that I wouldn't get much better, but I wanted to know what a year with her would do.

"She's like the Oracle," I tell freshmen, now. "It may not be true, but she always knows exactly what you need to hear." Three years later I've met my best friends in the world, and I have a life I couldn't be happier with. "I'm a Peabody success story," I say, but I stayed because of Vicky.

The Vicky who taught me at Aspen and the Vicky who met me at Peabody approached teaching me completely differently. She was still understanding and supportive, and we still got along really well, but never again would she be impressed by memorization or scales. She took those for granted, and while she didn't use fear to get me to practice, I'd never had to work so hard before. The first year was rough, and frustrating. I had thought I was good when I came to school, but each lesson she'd talk about concepts I had never heard of... each lesson I'd walk away feeling like I couldn't possibly get it, learn to play well, fix my bow hold and left hand and have sound and pull and Relax! She didn't want me to play hard and fast, she wanted me to learn how to play well for the rest of my life... there was no immediate gratification, just the effort of rebuilding everything for long-term progress. I liked playing hard and fast and instantly feeling good.

But I knew some of her Peabody students from Aspen, and it was pretty incredible to see how much they'd improved in a year. That, more than anything, kept me believing that she did know what she was talking about when I couldn't see it in myself. She has this vision of everyone she teaches—she'll see where they are, see where they could be, and want, more than anything, for them to get there. The frustration and the work that required were tough for me, but deciding to trust her and change everything just because she thought I should was the hardest part.

Things started coming together, slowly, the second year. By the end of it I felt like I could at least play pretty decently again. And occasionally I'd have these epiphanies, where something she'd been telling me to do for months suddenly made sense, and she'd be thrilled. Vicky was always thrilled by any sort of progress, and she could notice the tiniest detail of improvement. Except, of course, when she felt like I was slacking, and then the hard lessons would come. Those also started the second year.

Now my friends in the studio and I will talk about our lessons. Now we'll compare how intense she is on what days, what stuff she says when, and we'll laugh at what's the same and what's different. I know now that she's "intense" for everyone, periodically, and I've seen that for me it comes when nothing else has worked to get me to improve. The first lesson like it, where nothing was right and I had to do stuff again and again striving for Something better, only to get "Are you listening to yourself? Come on! You can do this! Why aren't you?" made me feel like a petulant kid. I didn't want to practice afterwards, out of spite. But once I did, something clicked, and by the next week I could do everything she had asked, and fast. "Wow, Gwen, that's great!" she said, beaming.

The more I learn from Vicky, the more I see how much I didn't know and couldn't do when I came to school. The better she helps me get, the more I see how much I need to learn, to be where I'd like to be. But at this point it's much more fun than frustrating, and lessons are a chance for me to show her what new stuff I can do. The thought of studying with someone else in grad school—someone who would talk and think about different things—makes me nervous…who knows how weird it would be to study with another teacher. I still wonder if I'll ever entirely fix my left hand, bow hold, sound, pull, and Relax! but now I think maybe yes, I will. She certainly thinks I can. And when new people join the studio, changing everything and feeling like they can't play, I can honestly tell them to stick with it, because it's worth it.

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Gwendolyn Fisher Peabody class of '05

Gwendolyn Fisher
Peabody class of '05