Jack Calder

Violin player Jack Calder plays in the Australian band, Ocean Blue

Jack Calder started playing the violin when he was ten. ‘My music teacher played and one day he asked if anyone wanted to learn. Some girls put up their hands and so did I. I didn't have a violin, but my uncle said I could use his. The lessons were really hard at first, but playing the violin soon became important to me.'

After leaving school, Jack moved to Melbourne. For a time, he preferred listening to music to playing it. The rock music he listened to sounded very different from violin music, so he bought an electric violin, and started putting the things he liked about rock music into the music he played on his violin.

A year later, Jack met a small group of Melbourne musicians. ‘We all thought about music in the same way and started Ocean Blue together. A year later, we were playing lots of concerts, and our music was selling well. But we didn't want this to make us different people. We didn't want to stop being friends.'

Jack met many people who think playing the violin is an unusual career, but he doesn't agree with them. ‘I think it's the best thing in the world. I guess I'm lucky that way. The internet has changed music, but when I walk into a violin shop it's like entering another world – one where time has stopped. Someone has looked after these beautiful old instruments that are two or three hundred years old. I think that's amazing.'