Learning anything means practice. It means trying and trying and messing up and circling back and trying again and again. It generally also requires studying those who came before you. Some would criticize this as imitation.

Bob Dylan disagrees. In a 2004 interview, he said:

It is only natural to pattern yourself after someone. If I wanted to be a painter, I might think about trying to be like Van Gogh, or if I was an actor, act like Laurence Olivier. If I was an architect, there’s Frank Gehry.

But you can’t just copy someone. If you like someone’s work, the important thing is to be exposed to everything that person has been exposed to…

And that is from a Nobel Prize winner.