talkmagic.co.uk

you can get tarbell on cd-rom from lybrary.com for 40 dollars i think...

:lol: if you found that tough you'd gotten nowhere using some of the stuff my generation were forced to deal with prior to it and the Mark Wilson Course hitting the shelves... they were the most explicit and easy to learn from books ever published at the time, both heralded for similar reasons.

Perhaps, if you augment that book with the McBride materials you'll start to understand things better... I know many in today's generation seem to require video in order to understand things...

It's not that it wasn't a movie, my favorite part of Bill Tarr's book is the illustrations.

What I meant was that the book, in my mind, lacked the level of depth and direction I wanted. Im studying out of Tarbell 1 and TRRTCM right now, both of which were published decades before Now You See It. (Im not trying to be a wiz or anything. Your response just sparked my curiosity so I looked at the publishing dates in my copies.)

Don't get me wrong, I do like Bill Tarr's book and would recommend it, I just felt like a lot of things were over simplified. One example of this is the false overhand shuffles. In Bill Tarr's book they were each covered in about four to six sentences. Not that I couldn't do them based on his instructions, I just prefer the way it was taught in the Royal Road, where every nuance is examined.

I will say that if I hadn't read Bill Tarr's book first I would most likely not have been able to jump into my other books the way I did. I just felt like I approached the Now You See It with the wrong attitude.

The whole idea behind the Tarr & Mark Wilson materials were exactly that, to make things so clear and overtly simple anyone could learn it.

Many people have difficulty understanding some of the more detailed books, including Tarbell. People like myself, dealt with learning "disabilities" as they called them and what we know now as ADD/ADHD and Dyslexia... ironically, such folks seem attracted to the worlds of magic, puppetry, etc. It's not that they're dumb or dense, they just couldn't figure things out as described in the older books that had very few illustrations.

I know that 90% of the slight of hand I know was taught to me directly by various friends and associates otherwise I'd never learned it because it is so hard for me to translate written information into physical action without some serious and very simple step by step instruction. I know that sounds strange given my rep, but it's a sad truth that has lent to me many long moments of eternal frustration.

I'll add, this is also why I seem to go on and on at times in trying to explain "a point"... trying to fit in all the details so people can understand what my meaning is. Sadly, the more words you use, the easier it is for certain types to turn them on you by quoting out of context.

Nonetheless... I understand what you're saying just wasn't certain as to why you'd say such a thing the first time around.

I like the over simplified versions. I learn the nuances throught the actual doing of the effect. I really don't like when they give details about how to hold the deck. Call me odd but how does the person writing the book know my hand size or anything else about me? Give me enough details to understand the principal and then leave the rest to me.

I don't like the fact that Expert At The Card Table is sold in bookstores not because of the secrets but because it will turn most beginners off of magic for life. It is a poorly written technical manual on magic and for the life of me I cannot figure out why it is held in such high esteem by many magicians. I think because it has the air of a snooty in the know type book. Give me Bill Tarr, Micheal Ammar and Mark Wilson any day. Just because something is simplified doesn't mean it doesn't dig into the meat of an issue, usually it means it was written by somebody who actually put the methods into practice and has figured what it is really all about and what really works.

Of course a its magic and highly subjective.

bmat wrote:I like the over simplified versions. I learn the nuances throught the actual doing of the effect. I really don't like when they give details about how to hold the deck. Call me odd but how does the person writing the book know my hand size or anything else about me? Give me enough details to understand the principal and then leave the rest to me.

I don't like the fact that Expert At The Card Table is sold in bookstores not because of the secrets but because it will turn most beginners off of magic for life. It is a poorly written technical manual on magic and for the life of me I cannot figure out why it is held in such high esteem by many magicians. I think because it has the air of a snooty in the know type book. Give me Bill Tarr, Micheal Ammar and Mark Wilson any day. Just because something is simplified doesn't mean it doesn't dig into the meat of an issue, usually it means it was written by somebody who actually put the methods into practice and has figured what it is really all about and what really works.

Of course a its magic and highly subjective.

I rest my case... that's the kind of stuff I grew up with... along with old coffee stained mimeographed and stapled (or paper clipped) monographs and countless other "rip-offs" ALL of which seemed more like Greek in that they rarely made sense.

Don't get me started on the hand thing... I know a myriad of adults who have to work with Bridge decks in that their hands are too small to handle poker cut cards and that's just one very small example on things... billiard balls, thimbles... there's a huge list of insanity when it comes to that issue.

Yes, give a serious minded student who is creative and resourceful enough information they can and will figure it out, create an alternate method that works best for them or any number of other out-comes. Fortunately we live in a culture filled with half-wits and lazy buffoons that will never apply themselves at any level of efficiency, when it comes to the labor of genuine thought and creativity... if it's not spelled out for them or in digital video clarity, it's just too tough... then again, there are many that believe that much effort is going too far.... it is better, in their mind at least, to have someone teach it to them directly or, in that they can't make it work "right", just make a video of them doing it poorly in prelude to an exposure track... which seems to be the newest hot trend in all of magic; seeking revenge against those that can via exposure, simply because you're too dang lazy and stupid to figure it all out...

I know that's a bit of a rant, but I've heard kids brag as to this being why they have done exposure tapes for YOUTUBE.

Oi!

bmat wrote:Just because something is simplified doesn't mean it doesn't dig into the meat of an issue, usually it means it was written by somebody who actually put the methods into practice and has figured what it is really all about and what really works.

Im not trying to attack you, I just wanted to clarify that this was not what I was implying. I can sympathize that there are often times were things are overly detailed. Personally, I like being given ideas as to how I could hold the deck, shuffle, etc. so that I can have a firm grounding from which I can evolve. I understand that just because the royal road tells me exactly how to do everything does not mean it is the only way I can, or that I am forced to do it that way. I guess in my mind, it just comes down to the fact that I would rather have someone say "do exactly this and then see what you can do with it," than "Try to do this, see if you can make it work."

Once again I don't mean for any of this to be aggressive and I'm sorry if it came off that way.