Learning by ear versus score

By ear:
It takes longer to be able to play a tune by ear
It feels more difficult
Once you have it it stays for longer
You get a great sense of feel, of the vibe of the tune

By score:
It's much quicker
You can do a much greater quantity
It's instant music - just add time
Sadly though: in one ear out the other

A friend reckons that learning tunes by score puts them in a different place in your brain. I reckon that if you memorise a tune then it ends up in the same place, whatever you started with. That said, I can only memorise a tune through listening, through earwork.

As I got faster at learning tunes, I found I didn't need to work as hard to "catch" a tune by ear and play it back. The problem was it went in short term memory only (in one ear out the other...) I still need to make an effort to learn tune in your inner ear, I don't expect that to change.

I'm finding I have many many more tunes that I can join in with than I can start. Time to start thinking about how to up the number of tunes I can start...