A series of posts on accidental successes uncovered in Zoom teaching in the past few months.

I love to be close to the screen while teaching on Zoom, both so I can see the student and my face appears life-size on their screen.

When I need to demonstrate something with my violin, though, I don’t have much room. If the violin is pointed at the camera they can catch my face, fingers, and movements of the bow. There is no way that with my desired set up the whole bow will be captured in the screen. They aren’t able to see where in the bow I am, or how much of it I’m using.

Perhaps this is happening to you, too?

My solution is to tape the bow. I put a thin white tape in the middle (landing spot).

If I land on white, students know I’m in the middle.
If I’m above white, I’m in the upper half.
Below white, in the lower half.

Simple.

I was also gifted a small student bow. Invaluable. This bow is clean (no tapes), but can mostly fit in the frame. When I want to demonstrate a stroke I use hair clips (link) to match where the students’ tapes would be.