Of all his teachers, David credits Ms. Nell Gotkovsky at Tulsa University for most advancing his technique. During a two-year course of study, David developed from a student into a violinist. When one hears his tone and observes his technique today, it is difficult to remember that he is also a well accomplished guitarist and percussionist.

In Tulsa, he not only played with the prestigious Tulsa Philharmonic, but also found time to write arrangements for string sections in a recording studio, study jazz improvisation and win numerous outstanding musicianship awards. He followed this with a successful venture in the field of commercial music touring with Nashville's Louise Mandrell for four years. Then came the switch to Rock…

In June 1991, David Ragsdale found the niche for which he is presently most well known: The members of Kansas discovered his style to be exactly what they wanted. So began several years of successful tours with that group of the United States, Canada, and Europe. David's work can be heard on such Kansas recordings as Live at the Whiskey and Freaks of Nature, on which he is a contributing writer.

In 1993 during his tenure with Kansas, David also appeared as an arranger/performer on the Jason Bonham Motherland album and the Smashing Pumpkins' Siamese Dream release.

There are very few successful composers of instrumentals in the field of Rock. There are even fewer violinists writing in this specialized, stratospheric realm. Combining the grace of a classically trained violinist with the sensibilities of a powerhouse rock and roll guitarist, David produced a CD showcasing his own compositions: David and Goliath spotlights his many talents as a preeminent violinist, a gutsy guitarist, a savvy percussionist and a most uncommon modern composer.

Joining forces with David on the CD is drummer Tom Nordin, a noted Nashville studio percussionist who has played with such greats as Maynard Ferguson, Dizzy Gillespie, Don Ellis and Lee Greenwood. Bassist Jerry Peek's credit can be found on the three Steve Morse albums Introduction, Stand Up and High Tension Wires.

Describing this, his latest work, David comments, "The title cut, David and Goliath, could best be described as a Rock 'tone poem' (kind of a film score without film). The opening theme on acoustic guitar is David's theme. The second theme (first stated by violin) is Goliath's theme. What follows is a battle sequence culminating in the actual conflict (marked by the drum solo), with David's theme rising triumphant at the end."

Laid before a student of music, David and Goliath would soon be ascertained to be a strict sonata allegro form, the first movement of a symphony (a fact that David only discovered himself after the work was completed!). Can the symphony itself be far behind? One hopes not.

"Before I started work on Bach Stabber," he continues, "I tried to think of the biggest instrumental hits I could… and practically the first thing that came to mind was a song from one of my all-time favorite bands Focus entitled Hocus Pocus. I decided to come up with a tune based loosely on that same formula, i.e., the recurring guitar riff, the "classical" violin section and the musical conversational exchange between the two different musical idioms."

"In Rondo and Fugue, I decided to experiment… and walk away with a piece that didn't sound like an experiment," David goes on. "Starting with the marching drum section, which was a hangover from my high school percussion days, and a desire to tamper with traditional musical forms, I first came up with the Rondo; then I wondered if I could develop the main melodic fragment into a Fugue. I ended up pretty happy with the final result, especially the Pied Piper effect at the end where the violin and marching drums fade out together."

"Until I wrote Opus 2 No. 1", he sums up, "everything else I had ever done was an attempt to impress someone else. Since I had finally decided to write something just for me, I gave the piece its name which literally means 'first piece of a second body of work.' So I guess everything before was Opus 1."

As he works in this field of music, David Ragsdale will continue to grow, discover and synthesize, creating new forms from old. He will always be found exploring limits given the modern composer, while delighting audiences with the sound of his soulful electric violin.