In my first year or two I picked up very little for two reasons: 1) I was egotistically fixated on trying to be original because some weirdo I knew kept copying me and making me feel like an immitation me and 2) I didn't want to discover that I might really be tone deaf by finding that I was unable to copy other peoples music by ear.
Thankfully these inhibitory factors have largely vanished but it is true that concentrating on technique also turned me into a precocious shredder about 4 years after I started.