54 Kathleen Edwards “Simple Math”

I like songs with a simple lyrical premise that is a variation of typical lyrical themes. Here we have a song that is not about romantic love, but friendship. Not unheard of, but fairly rare as romantic love seems to be the most common theme of pop music. The song also covers many years of that friendship, which is even rarer. There is also the introduction of math to explain the friendship. Now, we’re in even more uncommon themes. 

The opening guitar line has a nice tremolo effect that captures the familiarity of the relationship. Tremolo is a mellow vibration style effect that has an almost mid range echo like quality. You’d want to use it for more slow and mid tempo songs as it would clash with more up tempo grooves. I only own three guitar effect pedals, a tube overdrive pedal which is a nice distortion sound for guitar solos, though not really my preferred sound. I bought it at the recommendation of a friend, but I rarely used it. I also had an Ibenez tube screamer which is the distortion pedal I always used to get the punk rock chunky guitar sound I wanted. I wouldn’t use that for solos, but would kick it in for the chorus. The last pedal effect I bought was a tremolo pedal, and I just love it to pieces. I rarely used it live or featured it in any songs I wrote, I just loved the sound. 

Even now, when the computer programs contain all the pedals you could possibly want, I still will pull it out, stick a battery in it, and noodle away.