Austin Kleon is one of my favorite writers. His books are all about creation, copying and living an amazing life. One of my favorite posts he wrote this year has to do with copying.
Some of the most famous guitarists have copped to copying their heroes and making riffs their own. Here's a great quote I enjoyed from Kleon's post:
My kids (5 & 2) are gleeful, natural born copycats. Copying is how they wrap their hands and hearts and heads around the world. They not only copy drawings and music and recreate the world with blocks and play, they mimic their parents, they mimic each other, they mimic kids on the playground, etc. Copying and mimicry is as natural to them as breathing. There’s nobody around telling them they should do any differently, nobody saying something dumb like, “Don’t you want to do something original?” So they go about their mimicry, unfettered by any adult notions about originality.
Check out the full post for some great inspiration on how you can turn copying into learning.