talkmagic.co.uk

GaryGrace wrote: As for the guitar references, have you ever noticed how those who show the most disdain for fretboard dexterity are also those severely lacking in technical ability? I always believed that mastering the hardest things make the easier bits much easier.

Actually yeah, as with those who say with an irreverent: "yeah, I can do that" as said guitarist embarks upon a mammoth Mixylodian scale spanning the breadth of 10 frets... Said remarker then fails to prove his ability. Jay Sankey speaks a lot of sense. He's quite pragmatic too. Although you'd eat your hat if Uncle Charlie suddenly turned round one day and started doing a Cobra Cut after unconvincingly pulling a coin out of your ear...

I'm not a music geek, by the way, in case you were wondering... I think I may be a magic geek though....

Johnny Wizz wrote:Lady of Mystery is spot on. Are we magicians or jugglers?

Why does dexterity with card flourishes make anyone a better magician?

I am sorry but I would rather do a spot on DL than a one handed fan any day. One can produce magic the other only the impression that you might be a card sharp

I don't know but MAN wouldn't it be awesome if one could juggle and perform magic at the same time?! Hmm...

I've got to say I agree with Rufio (not just because of the guitar references) and memorire - if flourishing can add to an effect and it's congruent with your style, then why not consider adding it to the effect. I also really like what Rufio said about card springs giving a good first impression in the spectators mind - making them think, 'wow, this is going to be good!'

I don't need to add anything regarding combining magic and flourishing since the above few posts have done a great job of that, but I will say that juggling can be an art, and lots of people enjoy watching juggling, and flourishing is just the same. I've seen people amazed by simply flourishing alone - there's nothing wrong with that. In all fairness more people are impressed by magic, but that doesn't mean someone can't enjoy showing artful dexterity with simply a deck of cards. I'm also definitely not saying that magicians must learn how to flourish - if it's not your sort of thing, then absolutely fine, it's not your sort of thing.

Okay back to Steve Vai and guitars! I'm great believer that if you master the tough stuff, modes, chord & progression theory as well as technical ability etc then don't let that rule the way you write music, but take it all in, let it sit at the back of your mind and let it influence the music you write, in a positive way. Just my 2cents...

Rufio wrote:... that school of thought, if extended, would say that a certain element of clumsiness or dropping cards, for example would then make the magic effect when it does happen - that unexpected revelation for instance - all the more magical.

Does this make anyone else think of Lennart Green? Now, there's a man who doesn't look like he could spring a deck of cards. Or even anything as complicated as tie his shoelaces! [/b]

Alexio wrote: Okay back to Steve Vai and guitars! I'm great believer that if you master the tough stuff, modes, chord & progression theory as well as technical ability etc then don't let that rule the way you write music, but take it all in, let it sit at the back of your mind and let it influence the music you write, in a positive way. Just my 2cents...

Alexio, your 2cents makes a good point, as the analogy of tough music theory and magic is spot on. Let's talk guitars indeed.... For instance, whilst it is accepted that Steve Vai and Joe Satriani are technically gifted and know their music theory (e.g. Satriani developed the Pitch Axis Theory of Composition and apparently wrote the entirety of Crystal Planet down on paper without playing a single note), do they rock? Do they have mass rock appeal? No, their concerts seem to be dominated by a disturbingly high ratio of balding American males in tour t shirts... Do their riffs make you wanna throw back your head with abadon and gurn like a credible rockstar with pure aural ecstasy? Probably not. Although it's likely to bring out the air guitarist in everyone, it's not necessarily something you'd play to your friends. Note: space age guitarists should never release albums where they sing about cars, it's a music faux pas - I know, as I was ridiculed when I lent an album to a friend. It's great to listen to now and then, but give me a crunchy riff by Jimmy Page or Johnny Greenwood any day.

Getting back to the magic, you could be like Dan and Dave Buck and do the most complex, knuckle busting routine of advanced sleights. Unless the effect is a good one, though, as Alexio states, if that process of developing a trick has been ruled by all this knowledge of magic and technical ability then it's a waste. Of course, if a trick evolves purely because you want to incorporate a new sleight, then sometimes that gives rise to good creativity. Knowledge gives you some great tools and should definitely be a positive influence in magic and music, but the day you don leather trousers and act like a guitar god, as opposed to that unassuming knowledge that you are in fact a guitar god... well, bye bye groupies...

This is all interesting stuff. Perhaps mainly because im digging all the guitar references.

With me i dipped a tentative toe into flourishing for no other reason than i loved playing with cards. Yes i'd practice sleights, but they felt like reading Shakespeare, and when i practiced flourishes it felt like reading Irvine Welsh. Flourishes were there to just entertain me in a way, like a card form of masturbation. You're allowed to please yourself every once in a while. And there's nothing wrong with that......is there?

Isnt it the Nelms way that says if you're too proficient with cards the audience won't think it's magic anymore and just think you've got fast hands. I really disagree with that. There's no need to be showy, but there's certain cuts you can do that look impressive, are fast enough to bamboozle and not bore your spectator, and yet leave the deck in it's original order. A handy thing to have on board i say.

I think there's a fine line between showing off and demonstrating skill with cards. There's nothing wrong with the latter.

As for guitar, me and my friends used to have endless discussion about fast, technical players and if they ever play with feeling, and how one note from Albert King beats 1500 from Steve Vai. Happy days. I dont think you can listen to For The Love Of God by Steve Vai and deny he's playing with feeling.

I'm digging the Irvine Welsh reference. He's the only author I read where I was genuinely so impressed with his level of writing. Porno is so well written, and I love the fact that throughout his books minor characters link his world into a coherent and very real world. Such a wild imagination too. Ecstasy was his first book I read, purely for the title, due to my DJing and free party days (since then I've seen warehouses in a different light). Have all his books, minus Crime, which I've yet to read. In terms of that excitement and finding yourself impassioned i can certainly relate that to flourishes. The flourishes I'd like to add to my repetoire would be the LePaul spread, the pressure fan (i can do the thumb fan easily) and the long distance spinner. Whilst not a flourish, I need to work on the one handed top palm.

I too like those cuts that keep the deck in order; by way of your onanism analogy, I suppose the practice in your bedroom (as with DJing) is put to good use when you take those moves out of that bedroom context and perform for the public and not just your hands(!) Ooh er. Sorry for the blue talk. Having said this, showing off can serve a purpose, as instead of the clumsy dropping of cards, I sometimes effect to be a bit too arrogant by doing a long winded complicated cut which involves about 6 packets, and then pretending to look a bit pained as if that showing off has completely messed up the effect. So rather trying to convey clumsiness as ruining your trick, you are able to do flourishes but still use the same principle.

Steve Vai probably does put lots of his emotion into his playing, although whether he affects others emotionally remains debatable. I do like For The Love of God, but Blue Powder and Tender Surrender are superior in my humble opinion. Although really both Satch and Vai seem to be constantly chasing that sense of excitement of Surfing With The Alien and Passion and Warfare. Apparently Satch taught Kirk Hammett of Metallica to play. Used to be massively into that genre, but drum and bass and dubstep is where it's happening right now.

I too aspire to do the Le Paul Spread, i think it looks nice when you ask someone to select a card. Dont get me started on the Pressure Fan, i tried and i tried. I've slowed down footage of people doing it, i've read and re-read several pieces on how to do it and it JUST WONT WORK.

I always end up with a huge clump of cards pathetically spread about 3 - 4 inches.

Ive abandoned any ideas of doing these flourishes now, for the simple reason the practicing was ruining my decks. So what the hell, i'll live without them. I dont think this makes me a better or worse magician, just a quitter.

Gotta say i preferred Flying In A Blue Dream to Surfing With The Alien, but Satch was always the safer of the two. Vai with his Zappa background did it more for me. I like quirky music, Cardiacs etc, so his off the wall-ness sat better.

Rufio wrote:Note: space age guitarists should never release albums where they sing about cars, it's a music faux pas

Hahaha so true.

Rufio wrote:Having said this, showing off can serve a purpose, as instead of the clumsy dropping of cards, I sometimes effect to be a bit too arrogant by doing a long winded complicated cut which involves about 6 packets, and then pretending to look a bit pained as if that showing off has completely messed up the effect. So rather trying to convey clumsiness as ruining your trick, you are able to do flourishes but still use the same principle.

Nice. I'll add that you've got to be smooth with your flourishes if you want to take them outside the bedroom - no Pandora at all is better than a sloppy, painful attempt at a Pandora. Also, I happen to know the feeling of doing a few cuts after a spectator's card is lost in the deck, only to then think to myself "Ooooh wait a minute, did that last cut retain the top card or not?!" - not a great situation to be in.

Satch did indeed teach Hammett to play, and also Vai too. Vai's music is crazy. We know he 'can' write emotional music, such as Tender Surrender, but I think he's happy just being 'experimental' and often obscure, and you know if he enjoys that, then good for him. I musican shouldn't be forced into writing music that will maximise record sales, just as a magician shouldn't be forced into learning the type of magic that is most popular, or most traditional.

Finally, I'll add that the Le Paul spread is also one of my enemies. I've yet to put in a lot of effort to learning it though, so I expect one of these days I'll just take a deck and ruin it attempting to do the spread, and hopefully by the end of the day/weekend/week I'll have it down. Same goes for the one-handed top palm...*shudder*.

Grimshaw wrote:Ive abandoned any ideas of doing these flourishes now, for the simple reason the practicing was ruining my decks

Haha exactly! I remember annihilating a deck in 3 days learning the card spring. Good times.

On the subject of springing and the one handed top palm, I was watching Deal Or No Deal today (when incidentally a professional magician was on, but alas he didn't do any tricks) and was springing and due to this thread thought it's high time I start to dedicate some time to this move, which actually crops up a lot, as there's some effects which could really use it to be honest. The springing really helps - it's not quite there, and needs to be neater, but within the space of Deal Or No Deal it's developing with much applomb. It's quite rewarding when you know you've efficiently watched TV. The deck could do with changing as it's quite battered now, so maybe that might help.

I always mess about with cards when watching TV, anyone remember that scene from Lock, Stock & Two Smoking Barrels? Where that gambling chap is sat in the chair playing with cards and it's all speeded up?

That's me that is.

I was tempted to start a new Dove's Head topic, but it would seem superfluous given that it seemed to be a mutual interest to somewhat hijack this thread which initially dealt with springing cards in favour of discussing guitars, Vai and Satriani.

Accordingly I thought i'd bring this article to your attention in which Satriani is suing Coldplay for plagerism:

http://www.news.com.au/entertainment/st ... 84,00.html

Essentially, Satriani, one of the greatest guitar shredders of all time, is suing Coldplay on the basis that the single Viva La Vida is a rip off of his song If I Could Fly. Satch wants his day in court, however, and is not going to go away quietly with some kind of settlement. He waited till Coldplay received some Grammys before taking legal action, and it could be quite interesting to see how this pans out.

I think it's a really dodgy lawsuit. For a start what songwriter would knowingly rip someone off so precisely? It's obvious they'd get rumbled so they just wouldn't take the risk.

Also, it's an extremely basic chord progression so the likelihood that they came up with it independently is very strong.

There's a song by Weird Al type American parody singer, Bob Ricci, where he blends numerous songs with the same chord structure together to show that really everyone is ripping everyone off if you want to get literal about it. You can listen to it here (Warning: It's Cheese Central but it does illustrate an interesting point): CLICKNESS

Lastly, and most importantly, I'm instructing my lawyers to bring a case against both musicians for making me listen to the YouTube comparison of both dreary ditties.

Tis not the first time Coldplay have been accused of this, and probably wont be the last.

Seriously though, there's A - G when it comes to chords, and a few points in between. If you want a melody theres certain points you cant hit etc, so some things are bound to sound samey at some point. I've written things before thinking they were all me only to listen to an album i hadnt for some time and hear the same chords or riff blaring back at me. Its the grey matter regurgatating music bless it.

Oasis, now there's a band that can and should be sued left right and centre for plagarism.

Grimshaw wrote:there's A - G when it comes to chords

and Status Quo reckon to have only ever used three of them - very successfully!