Hi Guest P, I guess you are refering to this:

Learning tunes
Gaining a credible session repertoire is not to be taken lightly. It will take over parts of your life, and there will always be tunes you "need to get round to learning." Traditional music was never meant to be learned from a book – so why produce a book of tunes? Well, the world is a very different place from that in which these tunes were first played – where access to musicians with a wide repertoire was easier and song and dance were well-earned entertainment for most.
If you would rather learn the tunes by listening to them, www.folktunefinder.com has a function for hearing the tune as audio. Listen to as many versions of the tunes as you can lay your hands on. Online resources, such as YouTube, Napster, Spotify and the like, often make this easier than tracking down albums. Use the musical notation as a guide if you need it but aim to make the tune your own. Be influenced by all the different versions you hear. Don't expect anyone to play the tune in exactly the way you have learned it; but instead pat yourself on the back for being part of a living tradition where traditional tunes are being crafted and shaped by modern hands.

This does indeed offer some of the usual confusing advice about learning tunes. It refers to "Gaining a credible session repertoire" But these are dance tunes - sessions are probably a post war invention - and an excellent one at that - but hardly traditional.

"Traditional music was never meant to be learned from a book". Meant by whom? Ever since Playford musicians have been playing from, writing, buying and swapping tune books - and learning them from each other by ear. Just as we do know.

" Be influenced by all the different versions you hear.Don't expect anyone to play the tune in exactly the way you have learned it" As I have said - I have no problem with this except it must lead to 10 people in a room playing maybe 10 versions of Speed the Plough. Who cares? Well any group of people hopping to play for dance will probably have a problem.

I repeat, the issue for me is the mystery that surrounds learning by ear that pretends to lead us into some better understanding of dance tunes - often played by people crammed in a small room, playing too quickly and nobody dancing antway.

None of this changes my view of Tuneworks - their workshops use dots and thousands of us have learned to play the tunes as a result. I have peeped through doors for 40 years. What Tuneworks have done is to abandon the door and most of the walls - fan bl**dy -tastic

We use our own tunebook - and people learn by ear also - just as the have always done

Best wishes