talkmagic.co.uk

Hi guys,

Basically I began magic around June last year (8 months or so). I know some decent card tricks for parties (self workers, few sleights etc) a few coin tricks (french drop, penetration through napkin etc) a few mental effects/mentalism tricks (centre tear, 3 way test, gypsy mindreader) and a few other fundamental tricks. However, a lot of the tricks in MWCCM are not impressive enough for the type of audience I perform to (mainly students at university). Anyway, after knowing the tricks above and performing them to a good standard, I though I would invest in Corindas 13 steps to mentalism. I have been working on the billet section (slowly practising billets currently). But my concern is--- am I running before I can crawl? Because the thing is I don't know whether I should go back to these books or do 13 steps which i enjoy..... This is sort of a 'help I'm a bit lost' cry here so please excuse me if this post seems irritating.

Many thanks,

Johnny

johnnyryanUK wrote:Because the thing is I don't know whether I should go back to these books or do 13 steps which i enjoy...

How do you know you enjoy Corinda?

Buy it anyway. Then you can decide for yourself whether or not it's for you. No one else can predict that. Although I may be able to, with a manilla coin envelope and a slip of paper...

T.

Hi Johnny. Its a great book, which really will help you along the great path of magic, but as you mentioned in your post its only been 8 months since you first started magic.. And seeing all the sleights, and other routines you already know, be careful you don't overload your brain After all Rome was not built in a day! Remember there is lots of magic to learn, and will take a life time to achieve. I am 47 and still want to learn more... Enjoy what you do, and if you have not already done so, maybe join a local magic club ? Good luck... PS.. I am not a professional, just a magic geek!
Regards Garry.

My good friend, I wonder why you say that the effects in MWCCM are not impressive enough for the audience you perform to? It is not the effect that makes in impressive performace but the performer. If you're not getting the reactions then I'd suggest that it's your own style and presentation that needs looking at and not the effects that you're performing.

To be frank with you, mentalism takes far more skill and showmanship to pull off convincingly than any other form of magic. It's not as simple as people let themselve believe. There are some remarkably strong pieces of wonderment in the pages of MWCCM, if you're unable to make those work for you I'd be very suprised if you could make the material in Corinda work.

You've been a student of magic for 8 months, that's no time at all. I would suggest that you go back to page one of your mentioned book and work through it again. Don't just read it but really study it, invest the time to learn the effects, perfect them and make them your own. If you expect to be able to pick up a piece of magic and have the local dollymops fling themselves at you straight away I fell you may be disappointed.

Dr Percival RP Pound wrote:... the local dollymops...

You do have a wonderful turn of phrase Dr P!

Really sound advice from Doctor P.

It is not the complexity of the trick which impresses it is the performance. At Blackpool recently Simon Lovell did a basic almost self working trick which he says is always in his repertoire. I had learned this years ago and dropped it as too basic. Since Blackpool it has been right back in there especially if I am working to 6 or so people. What has changed is that I have become more confident with presenting an easy trick and making a mystery of it.

You are pushing yourself if you are trying to perfect mentalism and core magic together, indeed there are a lot of people who insist that the two should alwayse be kept separate. You really do not want to show off your skills at magic if you want to be regarded as a true mentalist. The entertainment criteria for the two things are different and if you display great magic skills your "gift" that makes you a mentalist will come under suspicion.

However, if you perform traditional magic there is no reason why you can't chuck a mentalism based trick in with it. I find that something which is a bit spooky or different will make peole look at everything else I do with slightly more interest.

But above all ENJOY IT!!! If you stop enjoying it stop doing it because nothing will communicate itself to the audience more quickly. I did a four hour restaurant stint on Sunday for mothers day and I really had to give myself a good talking to during the last 45 minutes. I foound that it was becoming hard work, I started to make basic mistakes and that isn't fair on the audience or the person who is paying you.

You've been given some sound advice but I want to emphasize the fact that properly executed Mentalism is not the same as doing a Cups & Balls routine; the public knows that the C&B is a trick. With Mentalism however, you want to invoke belief and because of this they will not view it in the same light. . . remember, that lowly little Center Tear literally built a religion and kept it thriving for decades before the magic community ever became privy to it . . . then again, since magic chumps got their mitts on it they've ruined it by treating it as a trick vs. method and likewise, not thinking it through when it comes to effective use that removes the psychological pit fall of said technique.

I've deliberately stated this so as to help you to think a bit; Mentalism requires a great deal of thought and contemplation. You don't just do a bit because you like the idea of it and worse, the ego-centered element of how it will make you look. Rather, you find material that supports your claim -- the ability you have be it Precognition or simply being good at Reading People by way of FACS or NLP, etc. With Mentalism there is but one single illusion-- YOU!

More than any other aspect of the magical arts, Mentalism is reliant on one's ability to perform/present and that presentation MUST BE natural to you and who you are. Unlike a magician or even musician, we can't be "off stage" -- a true mystic is always "on" and the public will put you on the spot with great consistency; especially if you are leaning on or hinting at some kind of Psychic/New Age persona.

My suggestion would be to invest time into both, the Mark Wilson and Tarbell courses in Magic and toss a handful of other tomes into that mix, such as "Magic & Showmanship", the Bill Tarr "Now You See it; Now You Don't" books, "Amateur Magician's Handbook" and probably "Modern Coin Magic" (you will notice that I didn't include Royal Road to Card Magic in that at least a dozen others will mention it -- cards are the biggest addiction in all of magic, use them with extreme caution.)

Learn how to do Magic first and don't worry about keeping up with the Derren Brown crapola and similar trends; establish yourself as your own identity rather than trying to be another clone of something that's already passe. After you've traveled this path for a couple of years and you've seen first hand, the difference in how people respond to you the more you study, practice and rehearse, the better you'll be in making the decision to shift over to Mentalism or stick with the traditional stuff that you've learned to do well.

I pushed big boxes around for over 20 years. Though I dabbled with Mentalism & Seance type work for ten of those years I didn't go into Mentalism full time until my late 30s and early 40s. The point being, I focused on one thing at a time, and after I had "mastered" the one field I shifted to a new arena. It was wonderful because it allowed me to be like a child discovering magic for the first time. I was several years ahead of the current trend (which started in the late 1990's . . . I wrote my first Mentalism/Seance book in 1989 . . . a solid 8 years before David Blaine & Criss Angel) and lucky enough to have direct interaction with some of the greats of the day, most of whom have passed in recent years.

My point is, study the foundation material first and leave Corinda, Annemann and Dunninger alone. . . LEARN YOUR MAGIC BASICS FIRST!

Brilliant advice guys. I feel a bit silly to be honest. I suppose in the environment that I'm in I feel to an extent pressured to perform mental miracles because a lot of people seem to want their mind read because 'word got around that guy can read minds' which is a little hard considering I want to build up my confidence and fundamentals haha. Do you guys think that learning cup and balls, sponges is a MUST?

There aren't any 'musts' when it comes to magic but its really worth learning as much as you can. Sponges are not only great fun to perform but they're also a brilliant way to learn sleights that you might later use in coin magic or even mentalism. There's not a bad section in Mark Wilson and the material is easily good enough, my first paid gig was 100% from Mark Wilson's book.

johnnyryanUK wrote:I feel a bit silly to be honest

Never worry about that, this is the one place where you can ask what may seem to be daft questions which everybody else has dealt with but I'll lay good money that many of us have had the same questions in mind but never had the courage to ask! Even the basic questions and answers will help many others here so ask away!

As for Mark Wilson, I seem to recall seeing footage of his Land of Alakazam TV shows where he'd taken the bog standard and often boring sawing a lady in half, but thrown out the usual box on a table with wheels and replaced it with a fine model steam train and tender on rails. The effect was the same, the props were different and attention grabbing and the rails were so right when the two halves were separated. More recently Criss Angel did the classic metamorphosis routine but without the usual curtain. Instead he used a waterfall of smoke which covered the changeover. If Mark Wilson and Criss Angel can take standard stuff and reinvent it then that's good enough for me.

Lady of Mystery wrote:There aren't any 'musts' when it comes to magic but its really worth learning as much as you can. Sponges are not only great fun to perform but they're also a brilliant way to learn sleights that you might later use in coin magic or even mentalism. There's not a bad section in Mark Wilson and the material is easily good enough, my first paid gig was 100% from Mark Wilson's book.

This, sponge bunnies and drunk students goes down really well!
You can get brilliant reactions from the simplest effects if you sell them. If someone says, "read my mind" think up a funny rejoinder and then offer to do something within your repertoire instead.
Or ignore everything I have said and do what you want anyway

I'm no pro (to put it lightly!) but I read a lot of magic books and see a lot of effects at least, and someone showed me the sandwich trick from Mark Wilson the other day and I was pretty amazed Even though I know the trick.
It seems likely to me that your problem is not the material, but the speed in which you are learning the tricks ( without extra effort to the more subtle parts, like where and when to perform, and the finer points of the presentation) and even more so, racing to keep up with your friends at uni and what they want to see. If you show them 1 trick a week, that 1 trick will be much more exciting than if you come in and show them a new one every day.
Also it's always worth re-visiting magic books you have already read because your tastes and abilities change over time.

If the problem is just that you have a bunch of tricks you can do well but aren't sure how to follow it up, stringing a few into a routine is probably a good next step, to form a little cohesive show, instead of some random tricks. There are probably loads of threads on this, but I'm sure one more will be welcome (!)
Most importantly, if you enjoy the Corinda stuff, keep on with the Corinda stuff! Always do whichever one you enjoy the most. (Just be wary of doing these tricks to all your uni friends, as Craig said, doing mentalism is a long road, and the effect of it is dependant almost entirely on you. Your friends probably won't believe that you happened to gain profound psychic insight coincidentally at the same time you got that book from the magic shop.)
Just remember that any form of magic takes a long time to get good at, and you have a lifetime hobby ahead of you, so don't rush it. Learn what you can, use what you like.

I'll be honest mate even with my really close friends and girlfriends without doubt they believe I have some supernatural power to read minds etc despite them knowing I perform magic 'tricks' as well so maybe its my personality that helps this because literally they think I can penetrate into their minds given the right conditions of course

Lady of Mystery wrote:There aren't any 'musts' when it comes to magic. . . .

Now days. . .less than 25 years ago and for most of the past 5,000+ years there have been and a lot of them.

In the 60s & 70s most shop owners wouldn't sell certain types of effects to prospective magic buffs UNTIL they had completed a series of lessons which began with basic slight of hand for at least a year to two years, during which the student would have to develop an act based on that material more than a few times. The belief was, by knowing the basics and having an established foundation you would be better prepared for moving into whichever genre of magic that interested you. From what I understand this was the way things were for these hard nose old salts when they were kids and magic shops were even harder to find and mail order was somewhat a "new" idea. . . one could wait for months to see an order filled, but then a very basic book on slight-of-hand would likewise be worn thin from constant use.

Today we live in a world that lacks discipline within certain arts and fields of study because there are no more old salts for us to have to deal with each week or visit to the local Magic Shop. . . no, we can throw many at whatever we want and make whatever claims we want EVEN WHEN WE AREN'T READY FOR IT.

Mentalism was always treated as the cream of the crop. . . something for showmen well into their 30s/early 40s would venture into because they had the sort of savvy required to command the stage and take something that's exceptionally simple and turn it into the miraculous. . . then too, there were certain younger performers that were talented enough to get away with similar programs so long as they used make-up as a way to age themselves. . . the Great Dante was one such character and though he was known for his big box shows, he had a quiet passion for Mentalism as well.

If you honestly love the art of magic, then learn it first; get the basics down before you go chasing current trends. Who knows, you may even discover your own path to walk by doing this, rather than existing in the shadow of what is now trending and being another dime a dozen clone. Novelty and SELF-expression is where you really want to be. By learning the basics and growing outward from there, you will know a much brighter sense of success not to mention the pride of accomplishment because you are "different".

As ever Craigs advice is spot on. It may not be what people want to hear because it doesn't offer todays must have, instant gratification. I have been performing magic for 4 years to a standard that persuades people to trust part of the success of their wedding day to me. I aspire to mentalism, I am not good enough at the core stuff yet to do more than prepare for performing it. There is no quick easy road to being a good macian / mentalist any more than there is to being a good violinist, live with it, practice, practice some more and then...... practice!!!