A funny story + video of us jamming the song that inspired my new Small Triangle HT pick

Howdy from Texas — Devin here

My girlfriend Soonka laughs that there are picks everywhere in our house—even falling out of our laundry—because I’m constantly tweaking and testing them out. It’s true. This is something I’ve always enjoyed doing, even back when I was working as an accountant.

Thankfully she doesn’t mind it, because she uses them every day too. In fact, we’re pretty excited to share this one with y’all.

Here’s the story of how my newest pick was created from an unexpected challenge: a song called Bus’ Breakdown (our cover of which is above) from a honky tonk/Western swing album called Dale & Ray that we both became obsessed with this year.

Our funny “wavelength”

Soonka’s a singer-songwriter whose debut—a fun song about Texas—we’re currently recording together here at home.

The funny thing is—whether covers or originals—we tend to get excited by the same songs in a way that makes us want to play them. Even with her songs, the melody and lyrics tend to come to her head and she grabs her guitar and goes with it. If I hear them, I can’t help but grab my guitar and join in.

Bus’ Breakdown is probably the funniest example of this “wavelength.”

We had been listening to this duet album, a collaboration between two local legends: Dale Watson—whom we love catching at the Broken Spoke (a local historic honky tonk) where he plays regularly—and Ray Benson of Asleep at the Wheel, whom we hope to have a chance to see soon.

One day, while playing along to it on electric guitar with my headphones in the studio, I became completely fixated on the song. As you can see, it has this very fast-paced honky tonk rhythm that turned out to be a bigger challenge than I expected.

The next thing I knew, the entire afternoon had passed while I was playing around with it.

When I went into Soonka’s office, she had her guitar on her lap and immediately said, “Oh hey!! Guess what I’ve been working on!?”

Instead of just telling me the song title, she started playing her guitar and singing—and it was Bus’ Breakdown. Turns out she was working on it at the same time—she even had a whole session with her vocal coach doing enunciation drills for it!

We were cracking up and immediately started jamming it together.

It’s not the only song from the album that’s made it onto our setlist (which is a mix of country & bluegrass)—something I hope y’all get to hear in one of our livestream shows we plan on calling Under the Texas Stars.

How the song inspired my pick (and jam tracks)

But just as all these songs we play and listen to shape our style and songs, they also shape my picks.

For me, when I practice a song or a certain style, I tend to get really fixated on it until it feels instinctive. During my practice, I also like to tweak pick designs and make new picks until I’ve got one that makes the whatever I'm practicing feel and sound more fun.

Honky tonk music is meant to be danced to, and groove is everything. At the same time, the instruments have to support the storytelling. This entire Dale & Ray album was made by some of the most seasoned people in this.

Every time we see Dale Watson, we’re always amazed. As the lead vocalist and guitarist in his band, he plays rhythm while he sings, then switches to lead during the breaks. It doesn’t matter if the story is sad, funny, rowdy, slow, or fast—his guitar moves and "dances" through all those changes and dynamics while supporting the story and never losing the groove.

For me, it felt like a training ground for something new on guitar, and I started looking for a very specific feel from my pick that would make it effortless.

After countless sessions of going back and forth between my studio and garage, testing out a bunch of new picks on my acoustic guitar while playing along to Bus’ Breakdown and the rest of the Dale & Ray album, I finally found it. I actually knew on the very first pick that it was the one and it felt great.

I played with it for several weeks just to make sure I wasn’t crazy but Soonka and I both kept reaching for it. I liked it so much that I decided to make a batch and release it in the Woodtone Strings shop. I called it the Small Triangle HT, which stands for Honky Tonk. It’s our current go-to pick for almost anything.

I think it’s the combination of the size, material, and curve radius that gave me the exact feel I was looking for. The tip that ends up sticking out of my grip glides over the strings really smoothly for single-note picking, strumming, and switching between rhythm and lead—whether I want to dig in or pull back. There’s very little clacking, and it records really well too.

I call the color Saddle Brown because that’s just how it ended up looking with the particular method I used to make them.

Through all of this, I’ve also come to realize what an underrated guitar player Dale Watson is. Jamming his licks and rhythm—which I realized have a "Bakersfield sound"—has unexpectedly improved my own playing so much. I've also recently recorded jam tracks inspired by this style which I've added to my Jam Track Library at CountryGuitarOnline.com.

I also have many other bluegrass and country tracks in the Jam Track Library, and each track is a training ground for different skills—but lately I've learned a ton from practicing in the honky tonk and Western swing style. (If you’re unfamiliar with CGO, it’s my site with 300+ country and bluegrass tutorials and jam tracks—where I teach not just songs and licks, but how to combine them, improvise, and create your own breaks over the backing tracks).

In a way, you could also say these challenges shape CGO. I think I just like sharing the things I find helpful in my own practice with other players, whether that ends up being through Woodtone or CGO.

I really hope you find it helpful as well.

Thanks for reading and happy picking!

Devin
Flatpicker & Founder
Country Guitar Online
Woodtone Strings