Walter started playing trumpet and then switched to French horn in high school. He has been switching back and forth ever since. He has played in the community orchestra and band, and also in the Muscatine Community College Jazz Band before settling in with the Muscatine Symphony Orchestra. From his youth he has loved orchestral music; but his true love is the early modern jazz of Charlie Parker and Thelonious Monk.

Walter is an attorney and a former Iowa state legislator. He is active in the Muscatine Sister Cities Association. He married the former Kristine Meyer of Muscatine: they have two grown sons.