On keeping one's own voice

John Coltrane, listening to Stan Getz, is said to have said, "Let's face it: we'd all play like that, if we could". I know how he felt. Yet how often one thinks, as one listens to some great maestro murdering a piece of music, "I never could hope to play like that, and if I could, I wouldn't". Such arrogance is needed, at times, to keep your own voice alive.