The applause after a recital is nice. The teacher’s quiet “that bar was clean” is the one you’ll replay.

Praise is only worth what the person giving it can see. A room clapping responds to the whole thing, warmly and with little information, while a teacher naming one bar tells you a specific hard thing worked, and they are qualified to know. The first is pleasant and the second is usable. You replay the second because it actually tells you something.

Which makes it worth noticing whose opinion you are collecting. Find the one or two who know enough to be specific, and ask for the detail rather than the verdict. And when you can see detail in somebody else’s work, say that instead of saying well done.