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Well, i am a fresh beginner. I haven't done anything yet. But i have read alot lately. Here is the things i think a beginner should have or know.

1) Learn some card and coin flourishes. Make ur hands and ur palms working. Warm up.

2) Learn some other advanced card and coin tricks. As many as u can. (books, DVD (refered) ).

3) Sponge balls (for kids n girls).

3) Rose tricks (there are 2 kindda rose tricks, learn both. Apply for girls and gays only). This is not important unless u want to impress ur girlfriend, boyfriend or ur mom. U'll get alot of points when the night comes.

4) Stigmata. Great trick. No setup required.

5) Levitate urself, coin, card... Time for u to get IT and magic wax.

6) Ok, now u have enough to go out and get experience for urself. Go go and perform to people.

7) Time to level up urself. Try to learn Mentalism.

This is also my strategy. I put one year on all these things. what do u think??? Should i change something??? Is there anything wrong with this plan? Let me know, i really need advice to make sure that i am on the right track.

Thanks,
wizi.

Okay...

wizius wrote:1) Learn some card and coin flourishes. Make ur hands and ur palms working. Warm up.

It depends. Personally I don't find that those warm me up. How flashy you get also depends on what kind of image you want to create with your magic. If you want to force them down the road that it's all sleights, then by all means go all flourishy. But it's all down to personal preference.

wizius wrote:2) Learn some other advanced card and coin tricks. As many as u can. (books, DVD (refered) ).

No. Learn the basics first. Then when you have got a solid foundation in both card and coin magic (Royal Road to Card Magic/Modern Coin Magic) take your time really learning a few effects so that you can perform them almost flawlessly. One of the worse things a beginner can do is rush out and buy loads of effects before being competent at the basics.

It is far better to know a few effects really well than many adequately. To perform well you need confdience, and confidence is derived from the knowledge that you know the material you are performing like the back of your hand. Over time you learn more, but it is best to focus on a few at the start.

wizius wrote:3) Sponge balls (for kids n girls).

I guess...but a lot of other stuff plays well to kids as well. Adults also enjoy a good sponge ball routine from time-to-time too.

wizius wrote:3) Rose tricks (there are 2 kindda rose tricks, learn both. Apply for girls and gays only). This is not important unless u want to impress ur girlfriend, boyfriend or ur mom. U'll get alot of points when the night comes.

Okay, ignoring that ridiculous stereotype there, what kind of advice is this to give? Again, learn the basics - stuff like this can come later.

And using magic in that way? Eurgh.

wizius wrote:4) Stigmata. Great trick. No setup required.

Again, learn the basics.

wizius wrote:5) Levitate urself, coin, card... Time for u to get IT and magic wax.

Personal preference. I never do any levitation, it's not essential.

wizius wrote:6) Ok, now u have enough to go out and get experience for urself. Go go and perform to people.

No, once you have a good grounding in the basics and some material you know really well you should go out and do this.

wizius wrote:7) Time to level up urself. Try to learn Mentalism.

Why?! What is essential about learning mentalism?

I'm a bit confused - on the one hand, you seem to be asking for advice, while on the other you seem to be giving it, with very little experience to back up your statements - a lot of which are not essentials and depend upon personal preference.

I agree 100% with Cardza. What you're doing is confidently telling us you intend to throw an egg, some flour, butter and sugar in an oven and that a cake will emerge.

Tomo wrote:I agree 100% with Cardza. What you're doing is confidently telling us you intend to throw an egg, some flour, butter and sugar in an oven and that a cake will emerge.

That's one magical oven you have there Tomo . Next time I have a party you're going to be making the cakes .

Cardza hit the nail on the head. Levitations are not neccessary at first and you should never go onto single tricks like Stigmata before you master the basics from books. Go out and get Mark Wilson's Complete Course in Magic and you will be headed on the right track. Flourishes are also not neccessary except the very basic ones which I find I use on a regular basis.

Honestly, in no offence to you, I don't think a beginner should be giving advice and that they should wait until the get more experience.

Practice makes perfect and not just knowing the secret.

Good luck to you and have fun with magic. It's not a competition to see how much you know, but as to how good you can perform it and sell it.

~David

Thanks for all advice guys. I am sorry to make u confuse. I list those steps for me and i hope we can discuss about this so other beginners like me can know what thing has to do first.

Thanks again.

TT's should be in your list way before IT.....just my opinion!

Start simple........a brick layer will tell you that when building a brick wall, the base layer is the most important! Everything you do later will either stack neatly in order, or fall over.......so put down a good base! Simple books/vids, learn some keys (misdirection, patter, presentation, etc) and build.

Thanks guys. Being a beginner myself thread's like these really do help I'm just curious as to what exactly "The Basics" Cardza referred to are? Its a kind of where do i begin thing

Thanks Alot

Sam

wizius,

the first thing to remember, is please don't use text speak. Some people skip through posts that are full of this, as they find it harder to read and figure that the person should make more effort asking for help.

To answer you question.

First, get Mark Wilsons Complete Course In Magic.
Cost, £10-£20.
Worth, priceless.

The title says it all. It will teach you a range of magic, letting you find for yourself which suits.
Nobody can tell someone EXACTLY where to start, but this book has enough genres of magic to help you find the right thing.

I bought a Sub Trunk, Head Chest, Head Twister, stage illusion items, which allowed me to disect and shove metal poles and blades through my son.
I bought a Thought Transmitter, Swami, and other mental magic type of effects. ( Craig, I HAVE learnt that there is a difference between this and Mentalism )
I have cards and close up items coming out of my ears.
I have found that doing childrens magic is for me, and I am suited for childrens magic. You need it both ways. I enjoy close up, but have concentrated on my performance/entertainment for children. Hence I am not good with sleights. This will be an ongoing, slow extra.

The result is that I have got rid of lots of the £1000s of items I bought.

Get the book, learn at YOUR pace, find what type is for YOU, spend as much time in learning to perform, write something in your own words, to make your performance unique to you. Remember magic is an Art, think of yourself as a canvas, paint your own picture for everything you learn.

DONT, DONT, DONT, go out and buy effects. Buy the basics for what you need.

A pack of cards, a few coins from your pocket, a silk or two, a TT, a notebook, pen, a few elastic bands, some rope/string, and a few more cheap things.
You can buy better quality if you want to aftarwards. If you find a certain thing isn't for you, at least it wont be an expensive mistake. Concentrate on the area you find more enjoyable, even if you find it harder to learn it. Don't learn because you feel that you MUST. There is NO POINT doing something for the sake of it.

Hope this helps.

Darrel

Sir_Digby_Chicken_Ceaser wrote:I'm just curious as to what exactly "The Basics" Cardza referred to are?

I mentioned two earlier - The Royal Road to Card Magic (book or DVD), is a good starting place in cards which can be supplemented with the Card College series.

Modern Coin Magic by Bobo is a good starting place for coin magic.

As Darrel has mentioned, Mark Wilson's Complete Course in Magic provides a good overview, with a more comprehensive look being offered with the Tarbell Course.

There are many resources for beginners out there, but these are generally regarded as the classics.

My review on MWCCIM is here:

http://www.talkmagic.co.uk/ftopic12113.php

More details:
Card Magic
It teaches the basic card terms, self working tricks, sleights, then flourishes. You learn tricks as you go, involving the sleights as you learn them.

You need to buy some decks of cards.

Money magic
Sleights etc, then effects using the sleights.

Uses money. shouldn't need to buy anything. Save the money to use!

Rope Magic.
Includes Cut And Restored, Equal/Unequal Ropes, classics of rope magic.
Other routines included.

Buy, soft/magicians rope, some string.

Silk and Handkerchief magic.

Buy some silks and a TT.

Impromptu.

Find these items around the house.

Mental magic.

You should have envelopes etc at a guess.

Make at home magic.

Varies on what you need to buy. Some things you may already have.

Sponge Balls, Billiard Balls, Cups and Balls.

You WILL need to buy the above.

Someone who has got this book help me out here. I reckon that you could learn most of the above, including buying the book, cups and balls, sponge balls, ards, rope, silks etc, for between £40 and £80. This is for a reasonble, but cheap set of cups and balls. You can buy a better set if you want to carry on with these.

Have the book and these items on your list to buy. Learn what you want from the book. THEN buy other books and items on the parts that interest you. You will have enough to keep you going for a while, then you can search on the forum for ideas of what to buy for the area you want to work on.

Keep an open mind at the moment. You may only want to do card magic. If you struggle and feel like giving up, remember there is a whole world of magic out there. Let the magic choose YOU.
I can't do a DL, never tried a pass, my fan is perfect, but only if I only use 1 card.

Wait until I am in my big kid mood, then I can entertain children with a mixture of fun and magic.

I will tell you of amistake I made. I have only done 5 or 6 shows for free, with people I know. The first one, I thought I should use magic all the time, as I thought of myself as a magician. I'm not, and my show wasn't. I am an entertainer that uses magic. My show had lots of magic, but it wasn't magical. I realised that I needed to entertain. Take a look at as much magic as you can. Use a stopwatch. Time the ACTUAL moments of magic, then the whole act. You will be surprised how little there is.

A final note. (honest)

When you have got a few tricks under your belt, and they WILL be just TRICKS to start with, figure out how to put them into a routine.
Only show the first one to people to start with. If they show an interest, show the rest of the routine. NEVER think that people will be interested in your magic. People like trainspotting, but I would rather slit my wrists.
I dropped my son of at the YMC on Saturday. I had 5 hours to kill, so bit the bullet to practice some balloon models in London. Went to Trafalger Square, made some, while sitting nervous at the edge of the Square. Not many children around, so walked round to give them away.
Moved to Covent Garden, checked with the Police where I could go, made some, but still not many children in the area I was allowed to work in.
Never done anything like that. Lack of children meant lack of interest. I realised I had learnt the biggest lesson I had though. I had gone from being a bag of nerves, to being dissapointed that there weren't more children about. Experience is priceless, whether good or bad, but only if you learn from it.

BOOOOOO,

Just waking you back up, sorry for the long post.

Thanks alot Darrel, thats really really helpful

If you don't mind me asking what is Impromptu

Anything you can do "on the spot."
If you are in a pub, you might pick a beer mat from a table and do magic using that.
Another phrase is magic with everyday objects.
Elastic bands, money, matches, pens etc.

Cadza has given you some great advice. Please,please please don't do what most of us have done and gone out and bought trick after trick after trick, you will waste some if not all of your money. We all have tricks we bought as beginners still lying around hardly used. Once you know the basics and have practiced them, even if it's just to freinds and family, you will be in a better place to judge where you wish to continue or develop your magic. Reading about magic is not the same as performing it. In fact being able to do magic is not the same as being any good at it, something that most of us I expect found out very early on. (and I alas still am)
The first book I would recomend for you from above is mark wilsons as it gives a good sounding in all aspects of magic after this you can specialise, but really Cardza's post above is the best advise you will get for a beginner.
Above all go slow and enjoy every minute of it.

Bettween writting and posting my last message I had to bath the kids, so missed Darrel's post. Great points well made.

Thank you all. It really helps me alot.