[cheese]

I'm self taught on the usual three (and it shows!), guitar, bass and drums, although I did need a little help from a little teaching manual for drums, I'm hoping to make them my first instrument instead of guitar.
I think formal lessons are a great way of getting things started, why not? I wish I had taken some on guitar before I picked up my bad habits, they totally give you a better understanding of music and an instrument as a whole which makes it much easier to use the instrument as tool for your own expression...look at Jeff Buckley, he went to college and was trained and he could do some very clever things with a guitar using alternate tunings etc, something I'd never think of doing by teaching myself.

Although, I'm really into the simple stuff, I like to get as many sounds as I can out of one basic chord and progression, Damien and E from Eels are big examples of how this can be done and a great song can come from it.