From what I've read, her mother is a professional violinist, and she seriously considered a career in music too.

ELCBK said
Very cool! 

Must've felt weird - the bow not having any natural weight on the strings. 

Thanks for sharing this!

  

If you look closely at her bow and bow hand, you can see how she adjusts to microgravity. When she plays off-the-string bow strokes she's holding the bow much more firmly than is typical. That may be a bad habit on Earth, but it's necessary in space because the bow won't naturally fall back to the string if it's allowed to bounce. At times I see her playing staccato on the string where a violinist on the ground would probably have played off the string.

I also notice she seems to be using a half-size bow, probably because it has less inertia than a full-size bow.

I'm not sure conserving space and weight were that much of a factor here. A half-size bow isn't taking up any less space than a full-size bow because the bow is in a full-size violin case either way. And the weight difference between a typical half-size bow and a typical full-size bow is only 10-12 grams, which is about the weight of a pencil or two quarters. On the other hand, the 15-20% difference in mass could be quite noticeable when playing in microgravity and relying entirely on your hand to push the bow back to the string.