I’ve heard of people who are tone deaf. First, is there such a thing, and second, can the average (not tone deaf) person learn to identify notes. As in tuning a guitar to, say, a piano or a key, and remember that note next time he/she wishes to tune an instrument?
I’m 63, and trying to learn one of the most difficult instruments to play passibly, the guitar. I will learn Stairway to Heaven if it kills me. 
Also, I’m having trouble with chords because my blunt fingertips don’t fit well on the frets between the strings. it’s difficult to fret one string without touching one of the adjacent strings. Do I need surgery?
Is there a good site I can consult with questions like these?
I do plan to take lessons, but right now I’m using “Jamorama”, which actually seems pretty good.
I’ve been told what I want to do is impossible. I don’t care.
Thanks, and Peace
mangeorge, aka Guitar George. 
It’s certainly possible to acquire absolute pitch, which is what you describe. But it takes most people a long long time! It’s also tied up with specific sounds and instruments: I can get pretty damn close to a 440Hz A on a violin, but ask me to help a flautist get in tune, and I’m screwed. This is because the identification of the correct pitch is about more than the frequency, it’s about how the qualities of the sound on a particular instrument change as a note is raised or lowered.
How to acquire such a skill on the guitar? Search me, I only deal with really tricky instruments But you could always just use an electronic tuner.
How do you open with a nearly perfect note on a violin, or any fretless instrument? Or do you simply recover instantly? Is that what “warm up” is about?
Pavarotti mentioned in an interview how difficult it can be with voice. How tricky is that particular instrument?
I have an electronic tuner. I am realistic. I made a sandwich with it.
It depends on the note needed and also on the context. And on the player.
In most cases, it is little different to finding any other note in the piece - it’s about the very precise muscle memory built up over many years. As for hitting high entries in the middle of orchestra pieces, I like to prepare using the same left arm shift as which would take me to that particular note if I were playing already and needed to leap to it. Doing these individual motions enough times allows you to trust yourself to hit the spot.
All this said, for the really important entries, such as beginning a solo piece, there’s ways of quietly finding the note by playing it, including by hammering the left hand down hard enough for the pitch to be audible, which the audience will nonetheless not hear (or not notice)
Edit: and yes, we ‘recover’ instantly. Constant attention to tuning is an integral part of playing a violin-familiy instrument.
Related to the OP’s question: how does one know if one is tone deaf? Does that mean you can’t appreciate melody or sing without a melody to “help” (acapella or however it’s spelled)? Or does it mean you can’t tune an instrument or recognize changes in pitch?
I’ve never known. I love music and enjoy messing about with a piano (I can’t be said to really play). I also like to sing along to songs and sing by myself (ok, in the shower), but I’ve never known what key I’m singing in or even what my range is…
Am I straying too far from the OP? I hope not. If so, ignore me.
I’m completely tone deaf. What that means is that you can take a piece, play it in a completely different key, and as long as the intervals between notes are the same it’ll sound exactly the same to me.
I think there is very little point in trying to learn absolute pitch. While it may be possible for some people to learn that, it will take a long time and likely won’t help your guitar playing at all. If you need help tuning your guitar, get an electronic tuner. Relative pitch would definitely be worth learning. There are many programs out there that can help you ("Earmaster " comes to mind).
As far as you fingers feeling too fat, that is a common feeling among beginning guitarists. However, different guitars have different neck widths. Electric guitars generally have rather narrow necks. I learned on a guitar with a 1 3/4 inch wide neck but was much happier when I moved to a guitar with a 1 7/8 inch wide neck. Classical guitars have a 2 inch wide neck. Look around.
There are tests for tone deafness, like this one.
ultrafilter, what you described doesn’t sound like tone deafness to me. Most people can’t detect key changes either.
Cool test. I have a “fine” sense of pitch, which became obvious to me once I understood what it was about.
We’ll shall se about my fat fingers. I’ll keep trying and see if they shrink any. 
I have a co-worker who’s a pretty accomplished guitar player, so I’ll talk to him on Monday.
Cool! I’ve been trying out the guitar this weekend. I’m having difficulty with fat fingers as well. Also, my fingers really, really hurt!
Mine too, but I think the most important thing you need to learn is how to ignore that awful racket coming out of your pretty new guitar.
Reminds me of a girl…
Inner Stickler, Mangeorge:
Lots of guitarists have had really short fat sausages for fingers, including Randy Bachman and Segovia. Didn’t seem to hold them back much. The pain goes away after not too long - the trick is to play often, for short periods of time. I used to keep the guitar out of the case near the TV, and I’d click off the sound for commercials - it gave me a nice couple of minutes of play and then a rest. Steel strings are a little harder to get used to, but after a couple of months, you won’t notice.
I’m getting more and more confident.
In the meantime, as a courtesy to my neighbors, I’m keeping the volume down. Nothing like a 110 db shreik to make friends.
Oh man, no kidding. I keep hearing a twangy sound when I strum chords. According to my dad, that means my fingers are either on a fret or not pressing hard enough. Hard enough!? I’m afraid I’m going to leave bloodspots on his guitar and he says I’m not pressing hard enough.
Le Ministre de l’au-delà, that’s a really good idea.
Three points (with no Hi Opal involved):
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Keep playing - as others have said, having funky fingers is more likely just a case of you getting used to requiring your fingers to do tough stuff and slowly winning the war. Chords sound awful for years - I couldn’t do a proper open F with the high E and B strings fretted for years, for instance. And when you don’t finger properly, it is very easy to pull the strings out of tune so your chords sound like crap. Don’t give up.
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Training your ear has little to do with enjoying playing - knowing A vs. F or whatever doesn’t add to or take away from a complete noob player who wants to rock on some Zeppelin - rock on, brother!
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While learning pitch may not be that big of a deal, IMHO, learning TONE is - by tone I mean a general catch-all describing the sound you get out of your rig. It sounds like you are using an electric guitar? If so, well there are a lot of crap amps out there - and a lot of great ones. Then, regardless of what you have, they can be dialed up for crap tone or really good tone. And then finally there is your hands - the central driver of what type of sounds you can get out of your rig. It is hard because a great rig (amp, guitar, effects) set up for great tone when a pro is playing it can sound like crap for an amateur because of the lack of control. So you need to find a set up that sounds good for you based on your skills at the time. One thing I always say is that with electrics, you spend 50% getting the sounds you want and 50% making sure the other sounds DON’T happen - e.g., deadening unused strings, managing feedback, playing chunky rhythm where you use your picking hand to mute the strings at the bridge. There’s a whole lot of “rubbing your tummy while patting your head” coordination going on…
What WordMan said. Practice jumping between chords, and make sure your left wrist is higher than you’d at first expect, and you’ll be playing rock classics in no time.
My fingers aren’t fat, but they aren’t very long and slim either. I had to give up the bouzouki because of this. But I play the guitar reasonably well. The finger pain, if it’s not muscular pain but pain in the tips, will go after several weeks’ playing, when you have built up callouses (my callouses are permanent now, even if I haven’t played the guitar for months, they persist - anyone else have that?).
However, a little tip: if you swab your fingertips generously with rubbing alcohol or meths, it will numb them for several hours. It feels quite oogy when you’re not playing the guitar, but it does stop the pain.
[Groucho] I dunno. Is it a subspecialty of “head”?
What’s ear got to do with tennis?
Tone deafness covers a lot of ground … a person who is described as tone deaf could be at a lot of points along a continuum. It could mean all of the things you’ve listed, although different people could have different combinations.
Answering for just me … I first figured out I was tone deaf in music class in about 1st grade or whenever they start teaching you basic music appreciation in school because I had no freakin’ idea what the lessons were supposed to be about. About a year later I participated in a research study of tone deaf children.
I certainly couldn’t tune an instrument, and usually cannot hear if an instrument is out of tune to begin with. I am not good at hearing differences in pitch when the notes are close to each other. When they get farther apart, I can tell they are different, but have difficulty figuring out which is higher and which is lower. By the time the notes are about an octave apart, I can hear the difference and identify which one is higher. I cannot sing with any accuracy AT ALL, and won’t sing in front of other people.