A great essay, as a response to this question:
I'm dying to be a musician | Salon Life I want to be a musician but I am afraid that I don't have it in me. I want to play an instrument and sing and create music and perform it. I don't really care about fame. I want to admire myself for being a more realized person, and I want to enjoy the company of artists, and until I am one I would be nothing but a fake, or worse yet, labeled a groupie.
The columnists response. (among many other things)
To play an instrument you need an instrument and you need hands. You
put your hands on the instrument and make sounds come out. You listen
to the sounds and make more of the sounds you like and less of the
sounds you don't like. You let it speak.