Hi, The Magic Café Community!

This is my second post and I hardly post it, but I want to ask you several questions...

1st. I am doing magic (Card magic) for 4-5 months now. I know how to do some sleights (double lift, the classic pass, hermann pass, how to force, how to control a card wherever I want, how to palm a card, the glide, the glimpse and the elmsley count), and some card tricks 9 or 10.

I have the Royal Road to Card Magic DVD set by Paul Wilson, and I've finished it (that why I know those sleights). From that DVD I've learnt only a magic trick that I liked: the one that you tell the spectator that his card it's in the 8th position and then you show a wrong card, put it in their hands, and then you count again and the card from their hand is again in the 8th position, and in their hands is their selected card.

I like very much card tricks, but I like the visual ones, because the spectators likes them for an example: Untitled by Luke Dancy. My problem is that: when I watch magic tricks, I know exactly every move that they do, that`s how I learnt anniversary waltz, this one and many more only seeing them for two times. I know that many are able to do this, but this is my problem: I can't learn new tricks, only if I look at others do them, I don't know where to look, where to read. I feel like those sleight aren't helping me if I can't do new tricks..

That' why I want to buy Modern Coin Magic, to learn some sleights with coins, and come back at cards after a while. But I like too much card tricks, and I really want to become better. In five month I feel like I didn't learn anything, only some sleights..

I just want some help.

I don't know what to do now. I have in mind to buy three books, but only one at a time I can:
Modern Coin Magic (for coin sleights),
Expert Card Technique (for learning more sleights),
Encyclopedia of Card Tricks (for learning more tricks).

I hope that my post didn't confuse you, and that you understood my problem..

Thank you.

I would look into the art of astonishment series by Paul Harris or ellusionists has the anthology by Daniel Madison which is a personal favourite of mine. Art of astonishment is filled with effects for everything from cards to leaves while the anthology is almost only card magic with some mentalism.

Good luck on your future endeavours.

You might want to look into buying Close Up Card Magic by Harry Lorayne. It's a great book with a lot of interesting card tricks and plots.

Have to agree with Bulla: get Close Up Card Magic!

Congrats EoKlausRO for sticking to something for 4-5 months! You're bound to improve your abilities!!

As a hobby-est of 5 years or so I'd say you have the sleights necessary to perferm 90 some-odd percent of card tricks today! Do you need more? Are you sure? Do you expect to be a good "creator" of card tricks when you've just begun?

Okay, so you like "procedural magician-in-trouble" card tricks, but of the ones you list, are they "visual", as you state? I know it's a buzz word for magic today.

You complain that you can "understand" how a trick is done on a viewing or two, then complain more that you can't "create" original tricks and the self-percieved lack is you lack of sleight knowledge??

So...your other self-percieved solution is to justify a choice to go COIN MAGIC, and hope the time away sharpens you card magic edge?

So yeah. I was fine untill I read your post. Now I don't know which way is which way. Have you considered:

-Your performance? This changes all that book knowledge.
-What visual magic actually is?
-that creativity is acctually work?
-You're 5 years from performance ready, unless you have those skills aready?
-difference between performing for friends vs. entertaining strangers?

Okay,so I'll stop now. PM me if I can help

I'm surprised with all the material on the RRTCM DVDs you only found one you like. You sound like the sort of person who needs to see the material performed in order to know it's right for you. There for you might be better off getting DVDs. Aldo Colombini, Jay Sankey and Paul Harris all have a lot of visual card magic.

Try taking what you know and making it more fun. Add humor or interesting plots. Perform a lot, it's good to have a friend to practice on, but find real people too-neighborhood kids, rest homes and relatives. Some of the best magicians can make opening a cereal box seem great. Work on your showmanship, it's important and useful.

There are many good books and DVDs, like the ones suggested above. Close Up Card Magic. Paul Harris's books. Some of Jay Sankey's DVDs (though be warned, Sankey is a genius, but he has no filter, so not all of his products are great).

But, as some others have suggested, perhaps what you need isn't so much new tricks as some insight into how to present them. Eugene Burger has a great DVD called Exploring Magic Presentations which is worth its weight in gold for the beginning or intermediate performer. Yes, he teaches a few tricks, and they're very good ones. I don't care about that--what he gives you on that DVD is a crash course in artful presentation of the tricks you already know how to do. I recommend that to every beginner who is serious about getting good at magic. Because any fool can do a card trick. Mediocre people can fool audiences with them. But not just anybody can really entertain an audience and make "magic" instead of just "tricks." That's what we should all aspire to.

Another good thing to try is to keep practicing your magic, but seek some knowledge and inspiration elsewhere. I certainly don't limit my reading to magic books. And some of my favorite routines have been inspired by the strangest thing. I've done coin and sponge ball routines inspired by obscure references in the back of books on astrophysics. I've done rope routines based around something I read in a book on epigenetic modification. I've done card plots based on the works of some of the great novelists--Dostoyevsky, Dickens, or even Stephen King.

And finally, if presentation does turn out to be where the problem really lies, you might be well served by taking a short course of acting lessons. As the saying goes, we are not really magicians--we are actors, playing the part of wizards. Since we can't do magic, it requires acting or presentational excellence to make our audiences see magic.

Thank you all for your answers. As I see you say that I must be a good performer, and that my sleights are enough. I never did a trick to a complete stranger, only to the kids from my school that I know. Only once I did to strangers, when all my school came into our class because they heard that there is a magician, but I did only one simple trick, without thinking more about presentation. I will try to write to every magic trick that I know a script and then I will try to go out there.

I just have to ask one more question, because of this one the above post started. The magicians, when they do simple tricks (not like card in lemon, card in ice, card through window), but simple tricks, like four-aces-cut, triumph, and simple tricks, they think about them, or they read them and learn them?

Thank you all again.

I may not be the best person to answer this but as far as I am aware, most of the Magicians learn how the trick is done (the method) and they will use that method but make other things different so the trick can be their own (because we are performers, even if just for friends ). I would say that most Magicians these days take old methods but change things slightly to make the trick their own.

Some people, however, think of a new method to do something. The best example I can think of is changing bills; eg. 5 one dollar bills to 5 one-hundred dollar bills. There are many different ways to accomplish this but the way it's done, or the method, changes between preference of the performer, what works better in certian situations, and so on.

In summary I would say most, most, methods are already published (the Magician learned them from a book or DVD) and the Magician just changes the performance to fit their style. But there are Magicians that are still creating their own methods on tricks and effects, which is what keeps this art going (in my oppinion).

This is my input and could be off but I thought that I would try and help you out

Cheers,
Andy

If I'm understanding you right - I've gone through a similar spell of confusion.

I spent ages learning cuts, shuffles, slights, tricks, forces - and could impress friends with these. However tricks just seemed like tricks, there wasn't much 'magic'. It almost put me off the art.

Then I realised it was not about tricks, moves, amazing illusions etc, it was about the performance. All that matters is the experience an audience gets, and not the effects used or how complex and clever the trick is.

I recently purchased a book called Magic and Showmanship, and I strongly advise this to you too.