“Music is your own experience, your own thoughts, your wisdom. If you don’t live it, it won’t come out of your horn.” – Charlie Parker
As I tell younger professionals: don’t try to be a clone of me. Not only will you fail miserably (because I’ve spent my entire life becoming me), but you will be miserable (because you are out of alignment with yourself by copying someone else). One of the goals in life is to find your own voice, your own tune in whatever you do.
There is a reason why a band like The Rolling Stones or Zac Brown plays sold out stadiums and makes millions of dollars and a cover band is lucky to sell out a high school gym with tickets going for the price of a basic cup of coffee. A random guy at a piano is not The Piano Man and even if great is merely reproducing someone else’s work without their soul, whereas the original artist has the pains and memories and laughter underlying each verse, each note that they created.
If you aren’t singing your own song, it will always be slightly out of tune.