IMO this has little to do with “taste” and more to do with analytical/critical ability. The more experienced and knowledgeable you become in a creative endeavor, the easier it is to self-critique and (especially in visual art) see mistakes. When you’re starting out drawing for example, you literally can’t see your mistakes. You intuitively know it sucks but you don’t know exactly why. Figuring out that last part puts you on the road to mastery.
The rest is accurate though. It does take a lot of grit and working through lots and lots of bad stuff. Developing a creative talent can be a pretty horrible experience because of that ;P
> You intuitively know it sucks but you don’t know exactly why
I think that is what the GP is referring to as "taste". You already have that intuitive sense that some things suck and others are good. What you need to develop, as you say, is being able to tell exactly why something isn't good when it isn't, so you can fix it.
I think what Glass misses in the grandparent post is that this analytical/critical ability is not innate, but acquired along with the performance skill, and at times the analytical ability gets ahead of the skill.
Many years ago, when I was in a youth choir and we were practicing a lot for a festival, I asked our director why we sounded worse at each practice. His explanation was that we actually sounded better, but that our analytical abilities developed even quicker than our singing skills.
The rest is accurate though. It does take a lot of grit and working through lots and lots of bad stuff. Developing a creative talent can be a pretty horrible experience because of that ;P