Fix Left Hand Position violin viola cello bass

One day I had a student come to my beginning orchestra class with each of her fingers bandaged because she had accidently cut herself while trying to chop an orange.  As we were playing through warm-ups, she exclaimed, "Wow!  It's so much easier to remember to keep my fingers tall and land on my fingertips!."  I joked that everyone needed to bandage their fingers to get the feel of maintaining tall fingers...then an idea popped into my head.  I grabbed my tape dispenser and passed out tape to all of my students.  They wrapped the tape around their fingers like bandaids...and we continued on with our rehearsal.  My classes tend to be large and it's so nice to have a technique that helps all students fix their own position.  This helped many of my students get the proper feel for left hand position.  It works for cello and bass players, too!  Now that I've done this a few times, I recommend using washi tape because it's more thin than regular tape and more comfortable to keep it on your fingers.

Collapsed knuckles, flat fingers.

Fun Washi Tape comes in all types of designs and it's cheap!

Wrap... not too tight!

Tell students not to let the tape touch the string.  Instant improvement!