Instruction

Here are some instructional materials I've used and liked.  There are many other fine materials, and if you have had a good experience with something, feel free to send a message to webkeeper@folkblues.com. 

For live teachers, look around your local area for good music stores, which will either offer lessons on-site, or will refer you to good teachers.   There are many workshops offered by a variety of musicians and teachers, and they may be advertised locally or are sponsored by your favorite stores.  Workshops are usually worth the money.  In addition, see the Music Camps page for larger workshop-type events.

Videotape and DVD Lessons

Homespun Tapes
Happy and Jane Traum's company in Woodstock, New York.  Extensive and very high quality instructional materials, both audio and video.  Teachers are top quality professional musicians.
Stefan Grossman's Guitar Workshop
Same high quality as Homespun, with an emphasis on blues, although there are many other fine materials available.  I think Stefan Grossman is one of the finest teachers in this medium.

Books

Bruce Emery's Skeptical Guitarist
I met Bruce at a guitar workshop where we were both students, but only after Eric Schoenberg recommended his books to me and I had a chance to use them.  He's got a very nice way of presenting material, and he's a fine fellow to boot.  He's written a very good beginners' book called Guitar from Scratch, and more advanced books, Music Principles for the Skeptical Guitarist, Volumes 1-3.  Lots of food for thought and practice here.

Magazines

Ever since I started reading Guitar Player and Frets (out of print) magazines back in the 1970's, I've found a wealth of useful instructional material in magazines.  I often photocopy articles and store them in a notebook for future reference.  There are several music magazines currently on the market which are worth a look for this purpose, including Sing Out, Acoustic Guitar, Fingerstyle Guitar, Performing Songwriter, and Guitar Player.

Online Instructional Materials

This is the tough one.  All of the other methods of instruction are reasonably easy to survey -- go to the music store, ask your teacher, visit a bookstore, order tapes.  But the Internet offers a large volume of material, often hard to find and hard to evaluate.

Guitar Notes
This very rich link site is useful for many other purposes, but does provide links to some instructional sites as well, so take a look.

Dansm's Acoustic Guitar Pages
I have no idea what motivated this guy named Dan Smith to put this page up, and it's not been updated for a while, but it sure is an extensive guitar theory site, and it's worth a look.  He is or was a Harvard grad student, and it could disappear anytime, so look now.