I usually just say “thank you.” In the piano scenario, I’d just say something like, “Music really gives me great pleasure” and leave it at that. Take it as a compliment even if it isn’t and let the friend stew in her own juices if she’s truly meaning to be ugly. When you react positively you take the wind out of her sails.

I get comments like that about my singing, but I have never found them to be unkind. They were compliments with a bit of genuine envy in them. Not mean jealousy really, but more of a true longing for their own ability or even sort of a baffled wonder at how a person can do what I do. I think when we have a talent, we often forget that it is truly a unique gift that people sort of marvel at.

It doesn’t have to be music. I marvel at athletes because I am possibly the least athletic person I know. It has actually been a source of embarrassment at times for me. So I probably have made comments that perhaps came off similarly and not even realized it, probably to mask my own embarrassment or inadequacy in my own eyes.

Thank you is an easy, gracious response. It’s amazing how freeing learning to simply say thank you has been for me. And it’s a gracious, freeing response to the person who may be directing their comment oddly more at themselves than we really understand.