[Rick Lee]

Most adults (here anyway) can afford a decent guitar to learn on. I wouldn't spend a lot of money on one for a kid, since you never know how serious they'll be about it. Most guitars need some work right off the shelf. Hanging on a rack in a store for months and months through all kinds of temps and humidity will change the neck. Have the store set it up before you take it home or buy from a private party who knows what they're doing. I would advise against an electronic tuner. You need to learn how to pick a note out of a song on the radio and tune to it. If you only go by sheet music and tuners and a song you really want to learn is tuned down 1/4 or 1/2 step, which is common, you'll never be able to make it sound right. Plenty of Van Halen songs are tuned to however Ed's guitar was tuned when he picked it up and decided to record that day. No rhyme or reason and lots of them are very close to E, but not right on. Only way to learn those is to know how to tune by ear. I've only ever used electronic tuners for setting my intonation and I can do that now by ear too. If you want to learn how to play your favorite songs, you'll need a good ear. Sheet music is good for the stuff that totally stumps you, but it's very often wrong anyway.