All links are personally checked out by ME.  I do not accept money for links, and I only accept link exchanges from sites that I have checked out and that I truly think are worth your time (and, occasionally, your money).

Guitar Instruction

Guitar Tricks.  This is a GIGANTIC website with tons of great lessons from great teachers. It is well-designed, with access to lots of useful resources.  It is a pay site, but not very expensive and there is plenty of content to justify the cost (just make sure you’re planning to actually use it!).

“Banjo Ben” Clark.  This guy is great.  An outstanding bluegrass picker (on guitar, mandolin, AND banjo) with a bunch of tabs and video lessons.  His tabs are some of the coolest breaks I know on many standards.

General Guitar and Music

Tuck’s Corner.  Website created by guitarist Tuck Andress, who you may know from the duo Tuck And Patti.  Loaded with information packaged in a very entertaining way, and it includes the most detailed analysis of pick technique that I have ever seen ANYWHERE.

Bluegrass Guitar Home Page.  Excellent resource for bluegrass guitarists and bluegrass guitar lovers.

Guitar Notes.  A website that can link you to just about anything guitar-related that you can think of.  Hope you’re not in a hurry because there’s a lot to see here.  One thing I really like is their “Chord Generator”, which can help you figure out how to play just about any chord that you’ll ever run into.

Guitar Shred Show.  Totally entertaining.

Barnes’ Blog.  Part of the website of musician Danny Barnes.  His blog, in particular, has a lot of GREAT posts about the life of a musician.

Books

Note, I did not include links to any retailers for these books; if you are interested, just google ‘em or look for them at your favorite book retailer.

The Advancing Guitarist by Mick Goodrick. I cannot say enough about this book. It is one of the few books I own that I find myself going back to regularly. It is full of all kinds of unique exercises, concepts, and even a whole bunch of philosophy! Lots of great ideas for new ways to look at the neck of the guitar, scales, modes, etc. More oriented toward intermediate and advanced players, but lots there for everyone, and not just guitarists.

The Guitar Grimoire Series by Adam Kadmon. This is a great series of books with a unique way of mapping out the neck of the guitar. There are DVD’s out now too, which I haven’t checked out. But the Guitar Grimoire is definitely worth the money, and I also like his exercise book. They have their own website at: http://www.guitargrimoire.com/

The Jazz Theory Book by Mark Levine. This is pretty much considered the bible of jazz theory. I’d only recommend it if you are pretty serious about wanting to learn jazz. Reading skills are practically a prerequisite for this book, although you could probably get some good information out of it even if you can’t read. And you would also want to have a pretty good grasp on chords, modes, and scales before you even started with this one.

The National Guitar Workshop’s Jazz Guitar Method. This is a 4-part series and is very interesting because the books are actually not that long, about 60 pages, and pretty cheap too. But they contain a lot of nuggets of extremely practical, useful information. Reading skills not required, but helpful. Here are the titles of each book in the series:

• #1: Beginning Jazz Guitar.  Covers chord construction and the modes, much of which is already here at HCG!
• #2: Intermediate Jazz Guitar.  Takes it to the next level, covers ii-V-I progressions, and creating solo lines.
• #3: Mastering Jazz Guitar-Chord/Melody. Study of how harmony & melody work together, an essential part of creating good jazz solos.
• #4: Mastering Jazz Guitar-Improvisation. Advanced improv concepts-altered chords, melodic minor modes, etc. Has a particularly useful concept called “tone clusters”
  that I really like.
  

Guitar Tabs and Sheet Music

Classical Guitar School.  This is an outstanding site, with lots of free material. Obviously it’s oriented toward classical players, but lots of the music on the site is very interesting and very accessible.  Note, all music is in standard notation, so if you’re looking for tabs, you’re not going to find them here.

Music Education

The Lamont School of Music (at University of Denver).  This is where I studied jazz, and I can’t say enough about the program.  Director Malcom Lynn Baker is without a doubt one of the premier jazz educators in this country, and the entire faculty is absolutely world-class.

Software

Band-In-A-Box.  Awesome program that allows you to type in a chord progression (even with complex jazz chords), choose a style, and then it creates a play-along track for you.  Does a lot more too…but that’s what I use it for.  In fact I used it to create all of the play-alongs on this website.

Retailers

Jamey Abersold Jazz.  The premier jazz education retailer on the web.  All kinds of useful books and other practice tools.

Tobias Music.  A small mom-and-pop (literally) store located in Downers Grove, IL.  Specializes in Taylor guitars and other high-end models, as well as a great selection of more affordable models.  They also have a bunch of great teachers if you’re in the area and looking for some lessons.

Jerry’s Lefty Guitars.  One of the very, very few retailers who specialize in high-end left-handed guitars.  Bless this guy’s heart.  Located in Sarasota, FL.