And the way I learn most tunes these days is to take a fancy to a tune I hear a mate play down the pub and listen hard. I can usually get it in my head after the obligatory three times through. But by the end of the night I'll have forgotten most of it. How ever, I'll ask my mate to play it again next time (it might be a week later) and because there are some vestiges of it it my addled grey matter, I can sing along in my head pretty well by this time's obligatory three times through. And I can remember it. And I cycle home singing it loud all the way .. maybe 20-30 times through. And I can remember it in the morning and I'll spend a week singing it in my head, god knows how many times through. But not once trying it on the fiddle.

And then in the pub, when it gets played, It just falls under my fingers like butter soaking into hot toast.