{"id":147682,"date":"2025-05-02T06:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-05-02T13:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/acousticguitar.com\/?p=147682"},"modified":"2025-05-02T08:24:04","modified_gmt":"2025-05-02T15:24:04","slug":"take-a-guitar-lesson-with-margaret-glaspy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/acousticguitar.com\/take-a-guitar-lesson-with-margaret-glaspy\/","title":{"rendered":"Take a Guitar Lesson with Margaret Glaspy"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe title=\"Take a Guitar Lesson with Margaret Glaspy\" width=\"1290\" height=\"726\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/rqdtNkS1gII?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Singer-songwriter Margaret Glaspy, the cover subject of the <a href=\"https:\/\/store.acousticguitar.com\/collections\/back-issues\/products\/no-348-sep-oct-2024\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">September\/October 2024 issue<\/a> of <em>AG<\/em>, demonstrates a handful of the guitar parts from her latest EP\u2014and her first solo acoustic effort\u2014<em>The Sun Doesn\u2019t Think<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The examples in the lesson are excerpted from a longer conversation between Glaspy and <em>Acoustic Guitar<\/em>, which you can <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/acousticguitar.com\/margaret-glaspy-connects-with-her-younger-self-and-an-old-gibson-l-00-on-the-sun-doesnt-think\/\">read in its entirety here<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"\/>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1083\" height=\"1461\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/acousticguitar.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/AG348-MARGARET-GLASPY-EX-1-3.png?resize=1083%2C1461&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-145413\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/acousticguitar.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/AG348-MARGARET-GLASPY-EX-1-3.png?w=1083&amp;ssl=1 1083w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/acousticguitar.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/AG348-MARGARET-GLASPY-EX-1-3.png?resize=371%2C500&amp;ssl=1 371w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/acousticguitar.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/AG348-MARGARET-GLASPY-EX-1-3.png?resize=759%2C1024&amp;ssl=1 759w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/acousticguitar.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/AG348-MARGARET-GLASPY-EX-1-3.png?resize=768%2C1036&amp;ssl=1 768w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/acousticguitar.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/AG348-MARGARET-GLASPY-EX-1-3.png?resize=222%2C300&amp;ssl=1 222w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1083px) 100vw, 1083px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>The guitar parts on the EP are interesting in that many are deceptively straightforward. The right-hand patterns might seem familiar, but a song like \u201cWould You Be My Man?\u201d [Example 1], for instance, has some unpredictable rhythms in the bottom register. Are those sorts of manipulations deliberate on your part, or just how you feel and hear things?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I think it\u2019s a little bit of both. One is that because I\u2019m often playing and writing by myself, things will come out that I think feel normal and are just kind of within my own wheelhouse. And then in playing them with someone else, I notice things I didn\u2019t realize I had done\u2014things that came about by letting the lyrics lead and accommodating them. So, some of the parts are a little wonky in their own way because that\u2019s how I heard them, and other times they start out more normal, and then in editing them, things get changed.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Your songs tend to have efficient harmonic movement. In writing parts like the intro to \u201c24\/7\u201d [Example 2] or \u201cBathtub\u201d [Example 3], are you consciously thinking about smooth voice leading and maintaining common tones between chords?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>There\u2019s an effort to make things feel like they\u2019re always very close to one another. I feel a little bit allergic to having large jumps\u2014I want it to creep. I wouldn\u2019t ever seek chordal information up the neck if I\u2019m already playing down at the bottom.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I remember being fascinated with Bach chorales, studying voice leading and basic contrapuntal movement, and getting that in my blood to see how I could employ that on the guitar. I think about it a lot, not when I\u2019m writing the songs, but after they are written when I finesse things a bit. It\u2019s not totally by happenstance, in terms of the actual voice leading. I like that work, for sure; I like to get in there and fiddle with the bits.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Singer-songwriter Margaret Glaspy demonstrates some of the guitar parts from her first solo acoustic effort\u2014\u2018The Sun Doesn\u2019t Think.\u2019<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":147683,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"Singer-songwriter Margaret Glaspy demonstrates some of the guitar parts from her first solo acoustic effort\u2014\u2018The Sun Doesn\u2019t Think.\u2019","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[2,1152],"tags":[],"ppma_author":[1541],"class_list":["post-147682","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lessons","category-play-like"],"blocksy_meta":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/acousticguitar.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/margaret-glaspy-lesson.jpg?fit=900%2C506&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"authors":[{"term_id":1541,"user_id":24,"is_guest":0,"slug":"adam-perlmutterstringletter-com","display_name":"Adam Perlmutter","avatar_url":{"url":"https:\/\/acousticguitar.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/Adam-Perlmutter.jpg","url2x":"https:\/\/acousticguitar.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/Adam-Perlmutter.jpg"},"author_category":"","user_url":"","last_name":"Perlmutter","first_name":"Adam","job_title":"","description":"Adam Perlmutter holds a bachelor of music degree from the University of North Carolina-Greensboro and a master's degree in Contemporary Improvisation from the New England Conservatory. He is the editor of <i>Acoustic Guitar<\/i>."}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/acousticguitar.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/147682","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/acousticguitar.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/acousticguitar.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/acousticguitar.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/acousticguitar.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=147682"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/acousticguitar.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/147682\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":147709,"href":"https:\/\/acousticguitar.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/147682\/revisions\/147709"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/acousticguitar.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/147683"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/acousticguitar.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=147682"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/acousticguitar.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=147682"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/acousticguitar.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=147682"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/acousticguitar.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ppma_author?post=147682"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}