talkmagic.co.uk

I thought I'd post a short guide on where best to get started.


If you think you can buy a book on magic and instantly become like David Blaine...think again.

It'll take time to develop you're skills.

For a start I suggest you look at close up magic, these are good quick tricks that often please. Close up magic includes tricks with: Coins,Cards,Rubber bands,Sponge balls.

If you're looking on Magic Resources..always check you're local library. I know thats the first place i looked and was surprised to find a decent Book on Card Tricks.Also the Internet is a good source. Youtube is a great place to find some good beginner tricks, I know I've found a few good tricks there !

Some Good Books.
Coin Magic: Modern Coin Magic By J.B Bobo
An amazing book on Coin Magic, well instructed. There are all sorts of different tricks, sleights and techniques. And a good bit on routines and performances. It's quite an old book, but is still a magicians must have!

Card Magic: Easy Card Tricks By Peter Arnold
This was my first ever book on magic. It's easy to read and understand, it's got quite a good few tricks that are simple yet effective. It explains the DL, palming cards and forcing cards. Certainly a good book for the beginner.

Playing Cards By Rob Beattie (52 Games,52 Skills,52 Tricks)
This is a very nice book on card tricks and skills. It's got a few good tricks inside and theres a nice section on card flourishes and shuffles. I found this book very helpful.


Also Derren Brown's Tricks Of The Mind is a good read..especially if you're more interested in hypnotism and other mind tricks.

DVD's

The Dan and Dave Trilogy (I managed to find a cheap copy off of ebay

Disc 1:

Disc 1..well frankly it's not for beginners....and I am. I found alot of the tricks really hard and my small hands don't help either...although there are one or two tricks that are really good. All the tricks are taught extremely well...they are talked through by either dan or dave..there are close ups, and they go over the really hard bits a few times. And after each trick they do a slow-mo of the whole trick. All in all a really good DvD...bear in mind it's more for advanced Magicians.

Disc 2:

Now I found Disc 2 to be a bit disappointing, it's all about flourishes (nothing wrong with that!) There are some nice flourishes..advanced yet again. But the downside is..it isn't taught very well. You have to follow captions on the screen with some background music..while the video runs through the move associated with each caption. I didn't spend long on this DvD as I was rather disappointed.

Disc 3:

Disc 3 is a lovely set of small tricks and flourishes...all perfectly explained like in disc 1...I really did enjoy watching it, most of the flourishes are nifty little things to do inbetween performances and or during them. It's a great DvD.

Dan and Dave: Andthensome

This is quite like Disc 3 in the trilogy, it's full of more nifty tricks (different from Disc 3 of course) and it follows the same description as above.

The trilogy is a really good set of magic dvds, perfectly explained apart from Disc 2 of course, but that's down to personal opinion !


For practising
I always have a deck of Bicycle (Rider Back) Playing cards on me. It's always good on the bus or just anywhere. Practise whenever you can really, but don't be trying to practise 6 different tricks at once. Find one thats at you're level and stick with it until your comfortable you can do it without mistakes.

Well I hope you enjoyed this short insight on where to start for magic.

Feedback (be it good or bad) Is certainly welcome!

Did you see the rather longer guide at the top of this topic?

Ahh............beginner mistake.

Still, good guide, and for once someone who doesn't mind public domain tricks being taught on youtube or other sites. Because, a beginner doesn't always know whether he is serious about magic or not, so its always best to get some simple free stuff under your belt before you go buying things.

spooneythegoon wrote:Still, good guide, and for once someone who doesn't mind public domain tricks being taught on youtube or other sites. Because, a beginner doesn't always know whether he is serious about magic or not, so its always best to get some simple free stuff under your belt before you go buying things.

what exactly are "public domain tricks2"?

I'm afraid that my feedback is this - its not a very useful guide, you dont mention any books, and why you recommend them, and if you're saying that what you've written is a guide - what exactly are you guiding them towards?

listing the magic and finishing with etc etc may not be the most helpful way to put it either...

any books on performance theory you'd recommend?

not being harsh for the sake of it, its just...you did ask for feedback

Thank you for the feedback..and yes you are right. I've edited it..so tell me what you think!

I think you'll need to put in a lot more work to compete with the link I listed earlier.

You're right. I couldnt help trying.

Nice Short list of things mate... Hopefully this may help some people.

TLS

Maybe add Mark Wilson's Complete Course to that list?

Surprised nobody has mentioned its absence yet!

Public domain trick?

As in, everyone should know it?

If everyone knows it, then it can't very easily be used, can it?

You know, some people make their livings off of this stuff, it is not our place to go ruin their careers by blabbering off methods just because nobody owns them.

Also, most of those You tube videos aren't very high quality at all in what they teach. Most of them are simply teenagers telling some secret they found out, teaching it without any thought to style, or good patter.

This generation will probably ruin magic and illusions for everyone.



-Ben

I was going to say exactly the same thing as Jake about the You Tube videos, they're one of the worst places to learn magic from. The methods are usually badly performed buy spotty little oiks with nothing better to do with their time. Stick to decent books and DVDs, and yes Mark Wilson should probabaly be in that list too as well as Royal Road.

JakeThePerformer wrote:Public domain trick?

This generation will probably ruin magic and illusions for everyone.

I think that this generation although revealing secrets on youtube, I think the true magic is in performance, majority of the people I show tricks to enjoy it for what it is...in that time space you are entertaining them with magic they are a believer, and no amount of youtube videos or secrets of magic revealed specials are ever going to change the true feeling the magician gets from entertaining and the feeling of amazement people get seeing PROPER Magic done by a professional.

TLS

Some good tips. Derren Brown's "Tricks of the Mind" is a great book and well worth a read