Welcome to “The Donald Schulz Project”

A little bit about who I am, my name is Donald Schulz and I was born grew up just outside of Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. I was quite active in the music scene during the 70’s and 80’s. It was a different time and I loved working on music and the community. Music was my initial passion. I have been writing songs since I was about 12 and I forced my bother to sing them. I went on to work in a recording studio and produced some very minor works that had very limited distribution. Recording was very expensive because the the equipment that was required to make a modern recording. I did have some great musician friends and contacts that worked on some of the material that I put together.

I am a trained musician, having taken piano lessons in my early years at home and from there taught my shelf how to play guitar. This gave me an advantage over others that were learning on their own as I already knew how to read music. In the 70’s I went to college for a year to study music which also helped me to find more musicians to work on my material. However, I was never really able to sustain a life where I could support myself with my music as I had no desire to play live and go on the road. I had enough road experience and knew I didn’t want to do that since I was playing every weekend somewhere since I was 16. I really just wanted to write songs and put together some exciting arrangements.

I left the music industry behind and worked as an accountant for many years and from there found a new passion in technology. Taught myself how to develop software and found this way more interesting then accounting. Went back to college for a couple of years and then started my very successful career as a software developer. After about 3 years of working on several projects in Edmonton, I thought it was time to relocate and what better place to go then Los Angeles, California.

I have been here ever since, got married to a beautiful girl a native Californian who never saw snow fall until she was 18. All along this journey I have kept up my skills as a musician and would still write the odd piece. About a year ago I was interested in getting a better midi keyboard to work with some software I was playing with. I bought a Native Instrument M32 because it was cheap and small but it came with a ton of Native Instrument samples and a lite version of Ableton Live. At first I didn’t really understand what I just walked into. I took some online video classes and saw a whole new side of the recording industry and the capabilities that I could do from my own home studio.

Back in the 70’s and 80’s it was very rare that you would find that someone had a home recording studio that was capable of producing a high quality recording. Now, almost everyone in this industry has their own recording studio and that includes me. I had to re-learn a number of things and get back into the swing of things but now I am ready. I plan to not just write music but to also record them and release them just as an independent artist. Speaking of which, in the later releases that I did do before I left the industry I recorded under the name of Thunderfoot. Even had a cool logo and everything but I have been out of the game so long that there is an active group out there releasing under that name so I had to give that up.

I am now going to be releasing pieces under my own name. I am stepping out and putting a face to the work. I have lived a very introverted life and preferred to hide behind some other name. Over the last 20 or so years I have learned more about myself and am comfortable to talk and put into words the things that I am feeling. Music has always been very therapy for me, I could play what I felt but had trouble putting words to those emotions. I am in a new phase of my life and feeling like I am finding my voice and with that my songs have more depth and I can say what I really want to say.