Very low power mp3 trigger

CrossRoads:
You can make it do that. Best is a standalone design so no regulator, power LED, USB interface, just the chip, 8 MHz xtal & 22pF caps (or resonotor, or internal), 10K reset resistor, couple 0.1uF caps.
Go into power down sleep mode, any button press is diode ANDed to hardware interrupt.
On button press, wake up, read the button, turn on P-channel MOSFET to power MP3 module & speaker amp, select an input, when done playing reverse all the steps.

Perfect! Thank you very much.

So a setup something like this, only leaving out the components you mentioned?
http://itp.nyu.edu/physcomp/Tutorials/ArduinoBreadboard

Without the regulator, what would be the best kind of battery setup to use? I was initially looking at a 12V 2.2Ah, but without a regulator I'd need something around 4-6V right?