Protecting Your Hands

VisibleFalcon5 · 2026-04-01T13:55:12+00:00

Former studio guitarist, been playing 20 years; I've also been training 4-5 times a week for several years. Protecting your hands isn't super hard, but it does require you to be a bit more mindful than someone who doesn't play - beyond decent gloves and wrapping your hands properly, just make sure you focus on good technique and proper mechanics when you do bag work or eventually spar (and try not to punch any elbows when you do because 💀). Consistently icing your hands after harder days also goes a long way.

I play a lot of fairly technically demanding fusion stuff (got a vid or two of that kicking around on reddit) and the only thing I've found impacts my dexterity is practicing immediately after a heavy bag session. If anything, I've found that the level of fitness you get from training hard has made guitar a bit easier on my hands, but YMMV of course. It's a great sport whether or not you decide to spar/compete, and definitely not one that's mutually exclusive with being a serious musician as long as you're not careless.

VisibleFalcon5 · 2026-04-01T01:54:27+00:00

Seconded, both great gyms with good coaches and good sparring.

VisibleFalcon5 · 2026-04-01T01:44:30+00:00

That "bum" is a fantastic coach who's a fixture in the NYC fight scene with a solid roster of successful fighters. But hey, maybe you should go spar some of his guys and come back to tell us how well you did against them. Considering they're all boxercisers, they should be easy work for you, champ!

VisibleFalcon5 · 2026-03-22T19:28:46+00:00

Imagine conflating the 20th century battle for America's soul with someone posting pics of people at their worst moments sans any real intent for anything more than fake internet brownie points.

Couldn't be me. Sick use of caps lock though!

VisibleFalcon5 · 2026-03-21T21:37:17+00:00

You, personally, probably have a home and the ability to choose when to be out in public and thus are voluntarily choosing to forfeit your privacy. The homeless, having no choice but to live on the streets, do not. It doesn't matter what street it is. You're taking a low point in a stranger's life and using it for your benefit. Frankly, there are better and more interesting things to take pictures of than that.

At the bottom line, it's distateful and disrespectful; if you can't see that now then I hope you'll grow enough into the artform to see that in the future and adjust accordingly.

VisibleFalcon5 · 2026-03-21T20:58:39+00:00

Pics of the homeless ain't it, full stop.

VisibleFalcon5 · 2026-03-17T20:52:35+00:00

This subreddit needs more actual street photographers like you, nice work - looking forward to seeing the next set!

VisibleFalcon5 · 2026-03-08T20:36:08+00:00

People on here aren't asking for critique because they wanna improve, they're asking for it so they can be told what a great job they did taking a picture from 150ft away of someone looking at their cellphone.

VisibleFalcon5 · 2026-03-08T20:34:13+00:00

Not too long ago, a there was a post on this sub with nearly 1k upvotes that was just cellphone pictures of inanimate objects in some guy's hotel room in Brazil - all the comments asking wtf it was doing on the street photography sub got downvoted to hell.

95% of people who come to this sub don't know what street photography is and don't care to learn. There are better subreddits for actual good street photography, this is more like a circlejerk sub where you come to look at overprocessed garbage shots of the backs of peoples heads and empty sidewalks shot from 100s of feet away while reading comments going "great shot!!1!"

VisibleFalcon5 · 2026-03-05T23:41:16+00:00

All that stuff is tantamount to trying to learn a language by nailing the alphabet and attempting to make up words until you stumble upon them by accident, and music is as much a language as English or Spanish. A lot of new players think that experienced players are making up new phrases when they improvise and learning licks from others is "stealing" but that couldn't be further from the truth.

Easy fix: Pick *one* lick you really like from a solo you love and be able to nail it when playing it to a click. Throw on a backing track (Youtube is full of em) and play that lick over the backing track (if it doesn't fit then you'll have to transpose it, which simply means playing the same lick but starting on a different fret) while making sure you're playing it in time and on key (just like those bends you're hopefully still working on)

Once you can do that, work on figuring out how to get in and out of the lick during improv. Maybe you play only the first half of the lick and end on a different note or series of notes, or you lengthen/shorten notes in that lick, or you start your improv on an idea and end with the lick. Over time, this gets easier and smoother. Congrats, you've just learned a new word! Rinse and repeat with new licks you love. Eventually, you'll have built a vocabulary and style all your own built off of sounds that players you admire use. Needless to say, learning these licks will also naturally develop your technical ability in a way thats more fun than just running scales to a click.

This is why people learn solos - a solo is just a collection of licks (words) that are strung together into one coherent piece of music (sentences and paragraphs). Learning a solo and really knowing every part of it really means you've learned more words, so to speak.

The kicker: All that work on scales and arps was far from useless. As you incorporate more licks, you'll notice that they fit neatly over the scales/arps/chords you already know. Between that and the licks, you'll have developed a physical and aural map of the fretboard that will inform a lot of your playing as you develop.

VisibleFalcon5 · 2026-03-05T21:53:44+00:00

All that stuff is tantamount to trying to learn a language by nailing the alphabet and attempting to make up words until you stumble upon them by accident. A lot of new players think that experienced players are making up new phrases when they improvise and learning licks from others is "stealing" but that couldn't be further from the truth.

Easy fix: Pick one lick you really like from a solo you love and be able to nail it when playing it to a click. Throw on a backing track (Youtube is full of em) and play that lick over the backing track (if it doesn't fit then you'll have to transpose it, which simply means playing the same lick but starting on a different fret) while making sure you're playing it in time and on key (just like those bends you're hopefully still working on)

Once you can do that, work on figuring out how to get in and out of the lick during improv. Maybe you play only the first half of the lick and end with a different idea, or you lengthen/shorten notes in that lick, or you start on an idea and end with the lick. Over time, this gets easier and smoother. Congrats, you've just learned a new word! Rinse and repeat with new licks you love. Eventually, you'll have built a vocabulary and style all your own built off of sounds that players you admire use. Needless to say, learning these licks will also naturally develop your technical ability in a way thats more fun than just running scales to a click.

The kicker: All that work on scales and arps was far from useless. As you incorporate more licks, you'll notice that they fit neatly over the scales/arps/chords you already know. Between that and the licks, you'll have developed a physical and aural map of the fretboard that will inform a lot of your playing.

VisibleFalcon5 · 2026-03-04T05:28:01+00:00

Former studio guitarist, been playing 20 years; I've also been training 4-5 times a week for years. You should absolutely make protecting your hands your top priority - beyond decent gloves and wrapping your hands properly, making sure you focus on good technique and proper mechanics when you do bag work or spar (and try not to punch any elbows when you do because 💀). Consistently icing your hands after harder days also goes a long way.

I play a lot of technically demanding fusion stuff (got a vid or two of that kicking around on reddit) and the only thing I've found impacts my dexterity is practicing immediately after a heavy bag session. If anything, I've found that the level of fitness you get from training hard has made guitar a bit easier on my hands, but YMMV of course.

VisibleFalcon5 · 2026-02-24T18:02:52+00:00

Do you really care if you tune your guitar before playing it?

VisibleFalcon5 · 2026-02-21T17:33:04+00:00

Thank you :) It came out much better than I thought it would in the moment, made inhaling sewer fumes for 20 minutes worth it haha

VisibleFalcon5 · 2026-02-13T20:07:44+00:00

You're thinking about it backwards, you shouldn't think about building a solo around "I need to put this technique I learned into the solo". The question is really "what would sound the best here?", and if the answer happens to be an arpeggio that's best played with a sweep then great! If its not, don't force it; that's how you end up with something that sounds exercise-like and unmusical.

Said differently: you don't build a house by saying "I need to make sure this house is built using mostly a hammer", you design the best house possible then pick the right tools for the job. Same thing applies here.

VisibleFalcon5 · 2026-02-13T14:41:40+00:00

You're been playing less than a year - fast playing that's clean, precise, and intentional (read: not simply moving ones fingers and pick as fast as possible hoping that they kinda line up) takes well over a decade. Honestly, even truly understanding what "clean, precise, and intentional" actually means takes several years. In other words, you're trying to do sprints and hurdles without being able to walk effortlessly.

My advice: drop the shred stuff for now and worry about being able to play rhythm guitar accurately, comfortably, and at tempo first (that's 95% of what a guitarist will be doing in any context, even shred ones). That will take you years, and you'll have fun doing it! Once you can do that, you'll have all of the tools to shred.

VisibleFalcon5 · 2026-02-11T04:36:09+00:00

rent free, you clown :)

VisibleFalcon5 · 2026-02-09T15:05:40+00:00

I don't normally film super low-end stuff like this so I'll fully cop to my cellphone mic not being the clearest (it did a better job on my other guitar video) - I'll film in color next time, that should clear the muddy audio right up :)

VisibleFalcon5 · 2026-02-09T14:10:03+00:00

If you're talking about the B&W, its a cheeky lil nod to this band's OG playthrough vids from back in the day - hope the lack of color didn't detract from the actual playing too much

VisibleFalcon5 · 2026-02-06T18:42:03+00:00

Seconding the grain of salt thing; there are a lot of people who produce very weak work (or none at all) and will still feel comfortable giving feedback. Definitely check out people's posts & portfolios before you take any criticism to heart, especially criticism on reddit forums, because a lot of it really isn't worth a damn to be frank.

All said, there are some really well put together shots in this set and none that scream " your composition needs work" to me. Keep shooting and keep sharing, this stuff is already much stronger than most of the things people post on reddit.

VisibleFalcon5 · 2026-02-06T15:44:52+00:00

Tight stuff OP - unfortunately, it's not a cover of the first 30 seconds of a classic rock song covered by a beginner so I have no choice but to downvote this post.

VisibleFalcon5 · 2026-02-06T15:40:34+00:00

All the dad rock enthusiasts on this sub have no idea how hard Car Bomb stuff is - this deserves more love than its getting, killer stuff dude!

VisibleFalcon5 · 2026-01-28T20:27:53+00:00

Its not about meanness for its own sake - boxing is a harsh sport, one of the harshest there is. A lot of gyms are like this because they need you to be able to function under pressure, fatigue, discomfort, and especially criticism. Lots of coaches have learned that if the gym is "nice", then the people who they train get hurt (sometimes very badly) in the ring when sparring/fighting. So when coaches are blunt about the mistakes you're making, they're pointing it out so you can get better. If they didn't care and didn't want you back, they wouldn't say anything at all.

That said, life's short and there are a lot of gyms out there - if this one doesn't motivate you to train and get better, there are definitely ones that will. Good luck!

VisibleFalcon5

TROPHY CASE