Netland was a born musician with perfect pitch. He devised his own "color" music scale at age 5, and composed his first piece at age 9. His third music teacher, Sergei Mihailoff, had been a student of Rachmaninoff as a young man. Rachmaninoff had suggested to Mihailoff that musicians were a certain percentage man and certain percentage musician. Rachmaninoff considered himself 95% musician, 5% man. According to Mihailoff, Netland's musicianship is higher than 95%.

Netland graduated from Cal State Hayward in 1981 with a B.A. in Applied Piano. In July of 1982, he began touring with Sound of Joy, a contemporary Christian music group as a full-time pianist and arranger. After touring with Sound of Joy for seven and a half years, he moved to the Celebrant Singers and toured worldwide with them for twelve and a half years. Netland is currently freelancing as an arranger/pianist/composer, and is available for hire. He has produced several recordings two of which are currently available for sale.