Hear it, Feel it, Play it - Album-Length Listening for Tune Learning

By Jonathan Lay, October 22, 2025
Revised October 23, 2025

Have you ever had the experience of listening to a favorite music album over and over, until you know all of the lyrics, can hum all of the melodies, and know what track is coming next? In an age of audio streaming and shuffled playlists, that’s become a rare experience. But for your own tune learning, having an album-length playlist featuring the tune you are working on may give you a good way to really absorb the music.

With that in mind, TrailJams has the beginnings of a collection of album-length playlists on YouTube. Each of the virtual albums in the collection is focused on a single tune. As you listen, you’ll hear the tune performed by an assortment of musicians, at various tempos, by itself or placed in sets of tunes, and sometimes performed in song form. As with an album, you can play them through a single time, you can loop them, you can listen actively, or you can just let them roll on while you do other things.

Listen for phrasing, ornamentation, and the subtle “nyah” — the expressive pulse that brings the music to life.

As you listen, you can absorb the music and the many ways it is played. Listen for phrasing, ornamentation, and the subtle “nyah” — the expressive pulse that brings the music to life. Listen for tasteful use of rhythm and percussion instruments like bodhran and guitar. Listen for melodic variations and harmonies. Hum, sing, or play along to engage more parts of your brain as you take in the music.

Why an “album-length” playlist, and why focus on one tune? A playlist with about a dozen tracks gives you an opportunity to hear the tune in an ample variety of settings. With a play time of 30 to 45 minutes, it’s long enough to let you focus without being too much to take in. While there are good reasons to listen to a playlist with a broader repertoire, having a playlist focused on one tune gives you good exposure to that particular tune as you learn and absorb it.

While you are Listening

As you are listening to the recordings in the playlist, here are some things you can do to help you absorb the tune.

Name that tune – Challenge yourself to recognize the focus tune (for example “Tatter Jack Walsh” in the “Tatter Jack Walsh” playlist) as it appears in various places in the different tune sets in the playlist. It’s surprising how hard it can be to recognize a tune quickly as it is played in different contexts.
Name those other tunes – Get acquainted with the other tunes in the sets – maybe you want to add some of them to your repertoire
Hum, whistle, lilt, or sing along – actively engaging with the music this way engages more parts of your brain as you absorb the tune.
Listen to the tempo – How fast is the tune played in various settings, and how fast do you want to play it? Maybe you want to play it briskly, or maybe you want to savor it slowly, or somewhere in between.
Listen for swing – Swing is the non-clockwork groove of the music. Is there a lot of swing or a little? Is the amount of swing different in different parts of the tune? How much swing do you want to put in?
Slow it down – When you’ve found a recording in the playlist that you want to play along with, you can use YouTube’s settings to slow down the tempo. (Here’s how: Instructions)

TrailJams Listening Series

Currently, there are just a few playlists in the TrailJams Listening Series. The playlists are on YouTube, so you can either watch them or listen to them. With a standard YouTube account, you’ll probably have some advertising pop up as you listen — so you might consider a paid “Premium” subscription that lets you listen ad-free. As new playlists are added to the series, you’ll see them in the TrailJams channel on YouTube. (Subscribe to TrailJams YouTube channel to get notifications.)

TrailJams Playlist Links

Roll Your Own Playlist

Of course, you don’t have to wait for a ready-made playlist that features a tune you want to learn. There are many ways that you can make a playlist of music you own. One of those that may not be obvious is the playlist feature in the BandCamp music service. That feature lets you make a playlist from the music that is in your purchased “collection.” (Here’s how: BandCamp Playlist How2). You can also make playlists in Spotify and Amazon Music. And you can make your own playlists on YouTube as well. (Here’s how: YouTube Playlist How2.)

The Science of Learning by Listening

The notion that listening to album-length playlists of a tune is a good way to absorb it makes intuitive sense. And absorbing music albums is something that many of us have experienced. But does scientific research support the method? I haven’t found any research that specifically addresses it. But here are some publications of research in the general vicinity of learning music by repeated listening.

Morgan-Engel J, Holmes H, McFerran K. Repeated Listening Increases the Liking for Music Regardless of Its Complexity. Published in Frontiers in Psychology / PMC. This study found that repeated listening increased familiarity and liking even for complex pieces of music — suggesting that repeated exposure helps internalize musical structures.PubMed Central
Tseng Y-H, Shannon R, Ho H-T, et al. Effects of Repetition Learning on Associative Recognition Over Time. Published via PMC. Demonstrates how repeated exposure improves associative memory via hippocampal/cortical activation — relevant to how repeated listening to a tune might deepen memory of its structure.PubMed Central
Hearing Health Foundation. Staying in Tune: Music and Memories. A well-sourced blog article summarizing evidence that repeated listening to meaningful music helps embed memories because multiple brain regions are engaged and connected. Hearing Health Foundation

Acknowledgement – Ben Powers: While listening collections of recordings for the purpose of tune learning is nothing new, it was Ben Powers who suggested to me the idea of an album-length playlist focused on one particular tune. That was in a workshop titled “Tatter Jack Walsh Bootcamp: A jig looked at in depth, from A-Z” that Ben led in September, 2025, as part of the Tune Supply Virtual Learning series. Ben Power is a flute and bodhrán player, singer, piper and sean-nós dancer. Links: Ben Power’s website | Tune Supply