Jaxon
Inner circle
Kalamazoo, Mi.
2537 Posts
|
Posted: Dec 12, 2005 11:34 pm
0
In another post titled Don't be a clone I posted a portion of an article for a book I'm working on. This is another excerpt for that project. I know it needs some editing but I'll go back and edit things later when I finish the basic writing. I'd love to know what you think of it.
Quote: The importance of learning the basics
The absolute worse thing you could do to yourself if you hope for any chance of success in magic is to skip the basics. Learning the basics of anything you’re interested in doing is important because unless you know the basics you’re unlikely to understand the more advanced aspects of that interest. A mechanic wouldn’t be any good if he didn’t know how to use the tools required to do the job. The same thing applies in magic yet there are so many out there who don’t have the patients to learn the essential basics before moving onto the more interesting things.
Now I realize that what I consider basics might not be the same as what you’ll need in your style of performing. But until you’ve developed your own performing style there’s no way you can possible know what you’ll need to know later in your magic studies. So it might be a good idea to listen to those who are more experienced and consider giving their suggestions a try. So if it’s card magic that seems to most interest you. Look up some card magicians and ask them what they feel are essential basic things you should know in that category of magic. For instance you might look for things written by a famous card magician. There’s plenty of knowledge out there to be purchased and you must be willing to give a little to those who have shared there knowledge with the rest of us.
Now why is it so important to learn the basics when you can buy a trick and learn everything you need to know right from those instructions?
First of all, without knowing the basics you might not even understand the instructions to the trick you picked up. Most of them won’t even explain how to do moves that are basic moves that every magician probably knows anyway. At least they all should know them. For example if a card trick requires you to do a top change. The instructions to that trick will probably just say, “Do a top change”. It wouldn’t describe how to do that move because if you’ve purchased that trick you should be advanced enough to know that move already. If you don’t then you should probably go back and learn more of the basics before you purchase that trick. This doesn’t mean you should return that trick or anything. It just means you should now purchase something that will teach you the required move. So you just put that trick away. Pick up the book that teaches how to do the move required (Top change in this example). Then once you’ve mastered that pull the trick back out and master it too. This is the one going process in magic that will never end and it’s one of the aspects of magic I most enjoy. I’ll always have something to learn and practice.
What if most magicians consider a move a basic move but I never have a use for it?
How do you know you’ll never have a use for it? You never know what will happen during the course of a performance. If you’re doing a card trick you could accidentally loose a break and you really have no idea where their card is. Someone could bump into you and knock the cards out of your hand. You could find the right card and the person could lie to you and say it’s wrong even though you know they’re lying. Just about anything is possible and you’re only chance to get out of that situation is to have options to choose from. The truth is it’s usually a basic magic concept that will give you the most options.
As for the example of accidentally loosing the break and you really have no idea what card they selected or where it is in the deck. What could you do if this ever happened to you? I’ll share a few examples on this later but it’s the kind of think mode you need to put yourself in. When something goes wrong figure out what you’d do if that happened again and the next time you’ll be prepared for it.
A true story:
I watched a magician performing a show in a local mall. He was doing a silk routine where silks kept magically changing colors. Although the act was pretty much like most silk acts I’ve ever seen he was doing all the moves pretty well. No major mistakes happened until he accidentally dropped his dye tube on the floor. What did he do when this happened? He picked the dye tube up off the floor. Held it up so everyone got a good look at it and said, “Well, now you know how that’s done don’t you”.
That was absolutely the worse thing he could have done in this situation. I understand that at the time he had to think quick but if he had more knowledge of the basics he would have been able to think of many other things he could have done at that moment.
After the show I talked to the guy. I was nice to him of course and told him that he did a good job because he really did except this one mistake. When I gave him a few suggestions of what to do in case that ever happened again he replied that he didn’t know anything else other then what was in that act.
I felt this was ridiculous. Here’s a guy doing silk magic but he doesn’t know how to vanish anything (Which is something he could have done to the dye tube). He didn’t know how to do any other tricks with a silk unless he had that dye tube (He could have just kicked the dye tube away and did something else with the silk).
So as you can see, if he had learned the basics he would have had many options to choose from when that unexpected thing happened. But because he skipped the basics and only learned the one routine with those objects he was stuck and couldn’t think of anything better to do at that moment.
Some Basic moves to learn
As I said before, there’s no way I can give you a list of all the basic things you should learn because I have no idea what your interests are. But the big question is. Do you know what they are yet? I’ll tell you that I’ve been doing magic for years and I still learn things that other magicians felt where basic tricks to them. So what I’m going to do is make a list of moves and tricks that I feel are essential for anyone who is fairly knew to magic and plans to perform on a regular basis. I’ll try to break them down into categories but you’ll find that most of these that I consider basics mainly apply to close up or parlor magic. Also note that there are many variations of some of these moves. I’ll only make mention of the basic move here. Which version of the move you learn will depends on the source you learn it from.
CARD MAGIC
· Top Change
· Double Lift (Or turn over)
· Second Deal
· Elmsley count
· Bottom Deal
· Tilt move
· Alignment Move
· Classic Palm
· Top Palm
· Bottom Palm
· Side Steal
· One handed Cut
(Needed for some locator card methods)
· A Pass (Quite a variety)
· Half Pass
(Single card or Packet of cards)
· Two card Push off
· A variety of forces including a classic force
COIN MAGIC
· Finger Pam
· Classic Palm
· Thumb Palm
· Back Palm
· Goshman Pinch
· Downs Palm
· French Drop
· Visual Retention Vanish
· Shuttle Pass
· Classic Palm Pass/vanish
· Thumb palm pass/vanish
· Inertia pass
· Spell bound moves
· Gallo Pitch
Above list is incomplete. They are just the moves that came to mind as I was writing.
Ron Jaxon
After regaining my ability to hear after 20 years of deafness. I learned that there is magic all around you. The simplest sounds that amazed me you probably ignore. Look and listen around you right now. You'll find something you didn't notice before.
|
dark kard
Regular user
Providence, RI
142 Posts
|
Posted: Dec 12, 2005 11:40 pm
0
Nice artical I enjoyed it and learned a lot thanks for posting it.
dk
"flying is easy all you have to do is miss the ground" Douglas Adams
<BR>dark kard
|
magicalaurie
Inner circle
Ontario, Canada
2962 Posts
|
Posted: Dec 13, 2005 01:45 am
0
I am in absolute agreement with you, Jaxon. Gotta have a basic "vocabulary" to expand on. Some fundamental tools that will allow for the development of versatility. Definitely. Thanks for another great post.
|
Father Photius
Grammar Host
El Paso, TX (Formerly Amarillo)
17161 Posts
|
Posted: Dec 13, 2005 04:26 am
0
Great article, Ron. Well thought out and explained. You certainly covered all the standard moves for cards and coins. I personally don't think the pass is necessary in cards, even though I can do a couple. Daryl made a believer out of me that there are better ways to control a card. But that is just personal preference. Any one who seriously wants to learn either card or coin magic, should at least be familiar with all those basics, if not very skilled in them. Keep it up, great stuff.
"Now here's the man with the 25 cent hands, that two bit magician..."
|
Pinto2
New user
76 Posts
|
Posted: Dec 13, 2005 12:26 pm
0
Great post as always Jaxon, I totally agree with you on the basics. But are you planing to explain how to do any of the moves you mentioned or is your book intended to just create knowledge about magic in general.
|
rmoraleta
Special user
Philippines
767 Posts
|
Posted: Dec 13, 2005 01:31 pm
0
Same here!
|
Jaxon
Inner circle
Kalamazoo, Mi.
2537 Posts
|
Posted: Dec 13, 2005 05:50 pm
0
Thanks everyone.
This article is far from over. What I'm doing is sitting down and writing about the topics that come to mind. Write out the basic idea or my thoughts on the issue. Then I'll go back and add some flesh to them. This article is just what I typed when I sat down to write about this issue.
I thought about teaching how to do some of the basic moves. But like I said in the article. My basic may not always be a basic move for someone else. Above in photius's post he mentioned that he doesn't have much use for a pass where I have many uses for it. So I'm not sure if I'll go over every basic move I can find but I'm still thinking about that.
I will teach some moves though and the book will teach some tricks. For example in this article about using the basics I'll add a few examples of something going wrong during a trick and teach a few basic moves that could get someone out of that situation. Take the card trick I mentioned in the article and you accidentally loose the break. I'll share methods to get out of that situation.
In another article I wrote for this I go over the three types of sleights. The three types of sleights are divided on how they are presented. Some moves are intended to copy a natural action and no one is supposed to know a move has been done (Such as a double lift). Some moves are done in the open and magic happens the moment the move is done (Such as producing a card from back palm). Then they are moves that no one sees you do at all and if they see you do it the trick is ruined (such as stealing a ball from a ball dropper). In that article I talk about why some magicians present the different kinds of moves poorly and why it's important to understand how to present these moves. I'll be going over some tricks and teaching how to do them in this chapter to help illustrate the lesson.
Anyway, that's how I'm thinking on the issue of including tricks and moves in the book now but I'm still deciding on that. What do you think? I really appreciate the feed back.
Ron Jaxon
After regaining my ability to hear after 20 years of deafness. I learned that there is magic all around you. The simplest sounds that amazed me you probably ignore. Look and listen around you right now. You'll find something you didn't notice before.
|
toolman22
New user
55 Posts
|
Posted: Dec 13, 2005 06:33 pm
0
As a begginer and someone who is still trying to master the basics. I find it sometimes hard to understand the arthor when he is explaing a sleight in all text. I sometimes wish they would put more pictures with the sleight.
Hope this helps
|
SuperMagicMozart
New user
25 Posts
|
Posted: Dec 13, 2005 08:22 pm
0
Some of those seem to pass from basic to advanced, in my opinion.
|
LDM
Loyal user
Upstate New York
278 Posts
|
Posted: Dec 13, 2005 10:10 pm
0
Just to let you know, Ron, you said "finger pam", not "finger palm". I got a lot out of that article, thanks.
|
Jaz
Inner circle
NJ, U.S.
6111 Posts
|
Posted: Dec 14, 2005 12:02 am
0
Before publishing anything check your spelling Jaxon.
The list does seem to go beyond "basic moves".
Jaxon, have a look here at Bill Palmer's topic in Secret Sessions,
http://www.themagiccafe.com/forums/viewt......37&0
may give some insight as to what others consider basic.
I would add Breaks, Jog Shuffle Controls and False Cuts for cards.
Bobo's covers some basic, easy and workable sleights for coins and Lorayne's early works does the same for cards. Worth looking at.
It really is subjective as to when basic becomes intermediate, etc.
|
Father Photius
Grammar Host
El Paso, TX (Formerly Amarillo)
17161 Posts
|
Posted: Dec 14, 2005 03:55 am
0
Quote: On 2005-12-13 13:33, toolman22 wrote:
As a begginer and someone who is still trying to master the basics. I find it sometimes hard to understand the arthor when he is explaing a sleight in all text. I sometimes wish they would put more pictures with the sleight.
Hope this helps
That is why there are videos and DVD's, Lots of good ones out there that teach both basic and advanced sleights. Harry Lorrayne's are good, Daryl's, Jeff McBrides, all for cards, lots of others for coins, spongeballs, just about anything.
"Now here's the man with the 25 cent hands, that two bit magician..."
|
Jaxon
Inner circle
Kalamazoo, Mi.
2537 Posts
|
Posted: Dec 14, 2005 07:07 pm
0
Yea, I think there are so many sources out there that teach basic moves that it would be a waist for me to include instructions for them all in this book. I think a better route would be to mention some of them and suggest some sources for where to learn them. For instance in card magic I might suggest the encyclopedia of card trick. For coins Bobo's. etc. etc.
Thanks for pointing out my spelling and grammar errors. I'll definitely have everything proofread.
Ron Jaxon
After regaining my ability to hear after 20 years of deafness. I learned that there is magic all around you. The simplest sounds that amazed me you probably ignore. Look and listen around you right now. You'll find something you didn't notice before.
|
calexa
Inner circle
Germany
1635 Posts
|
Posted: Dec 20, 2005 01:20 pm
0
The basics are fundamental in magic. I agree with you Jaxon that you need a profund knowledge of the basic moves. I only disagree with your list of moves - there you list some moves which I would not consider "basic". But that´s of course only my opinion.
Magixx
Optimists have more fun.....
|
Jaxon
Inner circle
Kalamazoo, Mi.
2537 Posts
|
Posted: Dec 20, 2005 08:41 pm
0
I'm not doubting anyone's suggestion that some of the moves on the list (which are only the ones that came to mind as I wrote) are above basic moves. I'd appreciate your opinions on which ones you don't think are basic moves and possibly explain why.
I know that my basic moves won't be the same as someone else's. When I was writing that list I was thinking about all the moves I've ever found useful in situations where something went wrong. So I was thinking of moves that would present many options and have many uses.
BTW - Thanks for the link JAZ. That discussion is a good one and I'm sure it'll be helpful.
Ron Jaxon
After regaining my ability to hear after 20 years of deafness. I learned that there is magic all around you. The simplest sounds that amazed me you probably ignore. Look and listen around you right now. You'll find something you didn't notice before.
|
The Magic Cafe Forum Index » » New to magic? » » The importance of learning the basics (another excerpt) (0 Likes) |