talkmagic.co.uk

so i was performing some card tricks for some guests a couple of nights ago, doing some pretty technically difficult stuff, mostly gambling routines. for some reason i decided to do that stupid david blaine trick where a card is forced and a duplicate is found in an impossible location. i hid a card in a woman's purse and proceeded to riffle the cards onto the purse. the card was found within a zippered compartment. even though i continued to do tricks that night, that was the one people left with a remembrance of. then it crossed my mind that perhaps we magicians get too caught up with doing tricks whose mechanics are clever and complex. because what really matters is what is left in our spectator's mind. if we work really hard at suggestion tecniques, and learn how to verbally force a card on someone, is it really going to be any more amazing for the spectator? if we read their mind without them writing anything down, is it going to be any more impressive than if they wrote something down and we performed a center tear. in the latter case, we are able to tell them much more about what they were thinking. but in the end, they are going to leave with the fact that we read their mind, and they're going to remember what we read in their mind. they're probably not even going to remember that they quickly wrote down what they were thinking.
I'm not saying i agree with anything I'm saying and I'm going to continue doing what i do. it was just a thought that passed my mind, and i thought i'd share it with the magic community.

I posted on something quite similar to this recently and I think the general consensus was its more about the magic than the trick.
Magicians are the ones that appreciate technically difficult tricks the most.

The Alkemist07 writes, in part: ". . .Magicians are the ones that appreciate technically difficult tricks the most . . ."

Naturally, since they know what's going on.

But the audience has the PERCEPTION of what's going on and that's even more imporant.

Very few members of any magician's audience will remember exactly what happened.

I still get people who INSIST that David Copperfield made the Empire State Building disappear!

The real magic happens in the spectator's mind!

Indeed, the 'stupid' simple tricks get people because they're often the most direct and impossible. For example, if you select a card, return it to the deck and then it vanishes and appears inside a purse that hasn't been touched throughout the trick that's pure magic. If you perform a technically complex gambling routine where you've been handling the deck constantly there will always be that potential for sleight of hand trickery.

It's a harsh lesson but sometimes that diagonal palm shift can be blown out of the water by a duplicate card. As Peter said, the magic's in their head.

I was performing some of my best gambling routines and the spectator said, "Your good, but I saw a guy push a cigarrette through a quarter and it totally blew me away." You really can't compete with the mechanical, selfworking effects like that. After all, we are entertainers first and our goal is to entertain the lay audience. Its not the trick, but the presantation of the trick that matters.
Al

Read Darwin Ortiz's Designing Miracles...he has a great set of passges on the Ace Assembly that make this point crystal clear!

i guess designing new tecniques will always keep us going. and everyone once and a while we happen to stumble upon something truly revolutionary.

Peter Marucci (abv.) wrote:But the audience has the PERCEPTION of what's going on and that's even more imporant.

Very few members of any magician's audience will remember exactly what happened.

The real magic happens in the spectator's mind!

I would argue that the perception is THE most important thing.

The other day I was bored and did a quick C***** ***R trick. I had the spectator completely dumbfounded. A simple verbal statement and they had no notion I had EVER touched the paper.

In the mind of the spectator they wrote something, tore it, and burned it - all while my back was turned. There is no way I could accompish what I did based on that description, yet, in their mind and to everyone they tell that's what it will seem to be.

Al Doty complains: "You really can't compete with the mechanical, selfworking effects like that (cig thru coin)".

How do you know it was "mechanical"? Maybe it was the un-mechanical coin; after all, the only thing we have to go on is the spectator's description.

How do you know it was "selfworking"? Maybe it was the un-mechanical coin; after all, the only thing we have to go on is the spectator's description.

In fact, for all we know, this unnamed magician may have come up with an entirely new method.

But the bottom line is still "perception is the most important part of a trick."

What the audience BELIEVES happened is far more imporant, to them, that what actually happened.

I avoid gambling routines as many of the people I perform to have no interest or knowledge of poker, etc so the end result is not as impressive as a card in a weird location or transforming into another one.
Magicians like gambling routines filled with tricky sleight as they know hard it is to accomplish, but the spec doesn't (or shouldn't!) and often these kind of things can fall flat.
The amazing, the impossible and most of all fun effects are the ones that people remember most, from my experience. If an effect that is excellent and is something I think will fit my style, but is very hard to do, I will put the effort into learning it if I think the end result would be worth it.

I don't see the point of learning trick sleights you'll never use, just to impress other magicians. If an effect is the simplest in the world to do but entertains the layman immensely - then I'll do it!

All this talk of magic and it seems often the spectator is forgotten. I see sleights as tools to accomplish things and if I think a new sleight will make something I do easier or would improve my magic then I'll put the time and effort in. I wouldn't learn something just so other magi will say "I wish I could do that!"
Everyone loves me anyway, so I don't have to beg for approval and attention like a discarded puppy.

I avoid gambling effects as well, although I don't feel it a good idea to discount gambling effects entirely. If anybody watching a piece of card magic has handled a deck before, it's most likely because of a few late-night games of Poker after all, and in my experience they serve as a good (excuse the pun) bridge to more magical effects.

I've found a happy compromise in David Solomon's "Power of Poker" (or, depending upon the conditions, Mike Powers' "Natural Power Poker") - both variants on the ten card poker deal and both incredibly fair and powerful. Besides, if you like your card magic and don't already own Dear Mr. Fantasy (or Power Plays, respectively), you really should.

So yeah, don't discount gambling effects entirely, they're most likely what link your audience to your cards after all...

Some of them are good, but I personally try and use effects that everyone watching can relate to and keep it pure. If I am performing for a table of seven people and only one of those has any knowledge of card games then the others may be impressed by the effect, but it will lack the "WoW!" factor which is what I strive for when performing. I also don't want to come across as a know-it-all that is trying to prove they are cleverer than the spectators which, in my mind at least, gambling demonstrations can come across as. Three Card Monte is about the most general one I can think of as the concept is so easy that even a chav could understand it and it contains some interaction.

Effects which have got great reactions (card wise) for me recently are Dave Forrest's Quantum Leap (which is straightforward, visual and impossible) and David Acer's Shadeshifter which, although short and simple to do has literally left the spec with their mouth agape when I have performed it and are even more astonished when I give them their signed card to keep as it dispels any notion of 'special' cards. These kind of effects, which are strong, are ones I enjoy performing and from the reactions I receive are enjoyed the most.
When I have seen gambling demonstrations (particularly poker ones) the magician often comes across as a smart-alec. Whoever he is.

Lord Freddie wrote:Some of them are good, but I personally try and use effects that everyone watching can relate to and keep it pure. If I am performing for a table of seven people and only one of those has any knowledge of card games then the others may be impressed by the effect, but it will lack the "WoW!" factor which is what I strive for when performing.

Oh, absolutely. It's all about the who, the where and the when...

Most women have no interest in card games. And they often make the best specs. It may be different in the US where the Vegas culture is quite strong but in Britain it's not as predominant.

Unless anyone can help me think up some good routines for cheating at Snap! and Old Maid....

Lord Freddie is only partly right when he says most women have no interest in card magic. Actually, most PEOPLE have no interest in it.

New Zealander Tony Wilson, past president of the International Brotherhood of Magicians, and I were doing some magic for a reporter at my house last year. We were about halfway through before it dawned on us that the reporter had NO knowledge of the names of the suits, let alone any card games!

Many people are like that; more than you would suspect.