My partner and I recently built a violin studio– more on that soon!

We installed a taller than average desk to accommodate a cool husky rolling tool box which houses my teaching and tech gear. A hidden benefit of the tall desk is that I can now teach standing rather than sitting. The discovery totally transformed my zoom teaching.

I LOVE teaching standing up.

A few of the many benefits…

1. Posture. I was coming away from my teaching days on the computer with back pain. As a 25 year old I felt way too young for chronic back pain, but no amount of fiddling with my chair set up helped the problem. After a day of standing I immediately felt better.
2. Effortless transition to playing. When sitting I felt like had to make adjustments every time I wanted to pick up my violin to demonstrate. With the standing desk I could simply pick up my violin and play. No computer angle adjustment, no hitting the edges of the chair, no hitting the bow on the roof or wall.
3. Variable proximity to the screen. When I’m standing, not stuck in a chair, I can back up or get closer to the screen whenever I want. If I’m watching a student play a long piece and can stand on the other side of the room and lean against the wall. This helps the child feel a sense of change and distance, but it also helps my eyes and legs to stay in constant motion.

You can buy a mechanically operated desk online. This one seems to be a popular option. Ours is much simpler– just an old piece of reclaimed wood (9″ wide) balanced on top of 2×4’s drilled into the studs. 34 inches from the ground is perfect for my height when I consider the height of our monitor and webcam. I can type easily, the computer is mounted of the back of the board on an adjustable arm, the web cam mounts on top of the monitor. This set up is available to you for under $10 if you have the computer on a mounted arm, and $50 to buy the computer mounting hardware. It can be put together in under an hour.