New York is crawling with guitar demigods who will be happy to show you their rendition of Van Halen’s “Eruption” at Sam Ash, but the town is also rich in the real thing: teachers of the six-string that are so good they’ll scare you. “You don’t have to like your teacher. You have to be intimidated enough to actually practice,” advises Tom Beaujour, senior editor at Guitar World magazine. Beaujour recommends Richard Lloyd (212-544-9070), who has played with acts like Television and Matthew Sweet. “He’s a legendary guitarist, and he’s got an entire personal system of how the guitar works,”says Beaujour. Lloyd is strong on mechanics and music theory, but more importantly, his life and his teaching are about making music. “Some people come in and think that I’m going to teach them to play a song or a riff,” Lloyd says. “I won’t. I teach the alphabet or the molecular chemistry of riff-making. I make you sound more like yourself.”