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If you spread a deck of cards between your hands, there's no need to say:"Pick any card". The gesture is enough.

Sometimes it's necessary to be sure the spec understands what they are required to do, I can easily imagine a smartypants loooking st the spread deck and saying, 'A pack of cards, very nice'

Yes, I think you have to say something rather than just stand there looking like a dope and expecting the spectator to read your mind. And it helps your communication and rapport with the audience. There is something terribly smug about saying nothing unless you can do it with a twinkle in the eye and a pleasant manner.

Indeed it would seem very strange that, if you give verbal instructions in other routines, you stop talking during another effect. If you're doing a non-verbal act where mine, facial expressions and gestures are the only methods of communications then certainly offering the deck mute would be OK but you'd still need to make sure that the spec understood by using other methods.

Not giving an instruction lays you open to the spectator doing something you don't want them to do. Spectators don't make mistakes. The performer is responsible for communicating exactly what he wants the spectator to do in clear understandable terms

If you don't have a problem standing there in an awkward silence staring at your spectator with a spread deck between you then it is certainly not a problem.

And if you want to be really nit picky then the problem is the 'any' in 'pick any card'. So you can say 'pick a card' well of course you want the to pick a card because you are holding a card, so you can say 'Pick A'...

There is an effect called "Fresh Fish Sold Here Today" which works on the same theory. You hold a paper that says "Fresh Fish Sold Here Today" and as a the magician you point out the redundancy of each word. So you tear a word off the paper one at a time. Of course then you don't have a sign and nobody knows why you are there. So with the wave of the hand the sign is completely restored.

There is a lesson in there somewhere.

I'm not sure of the purpose of this thread and the original statement is rather odd. I also think - like others who have posted - that it is wrong. As has been pointed out there is a good chance the spectator will just stand there not knowing what is expected, for all they know you could be showing them the cards.

I usually ask them to "take a card" rather than "pick" or "choose". I read this advice years ago in one of Jean Hugards books (Royal Road perhaps), and have always tried to follow it. I can't remember exactly what is said but it was something to do with the use of the words pick or choose, and how they could be interpretated to mean that the spectator could take time and be picky of which card to choose. I think is was mentioned in the context of the classic force, but can also apply to a genuine selection.

I always say something though.


Jim

I remember the Hugard thing. He was actually quoting Robert-Houdin ( I think) who felt that in connection with the classic force the word "choose" suggests a liberty of action that would be better muted a trifle.

I don't like to say "take a card" or "pick a card" because both sound a bit hackneyed so I say something a bit different deciding on the circumstances.

I have no problem using the phrase, but I understand what you mean.

Don't get me wrong though, I don't just fan a deck and say take a card - there is more to it than that. But the phrase will be in there.

I wonder if the OP has been reading about not pointing out the obvious and has applied it, wrongly, to the selection procedure. The wording of the original post seems to suggest something like this.


Jim

Sometimes if I am in a long winded mood I say, "Whenever you see a magician he always says 'take a card'. I am supposed to be a magician so you are supposed to take a card"

I have even been known to make a gag out of it by saying. "Whenever you see a magician they make you sick. They always say the same thing-take a card-take a card........" then I pause and go up to someone and say "take a card". It gets a laugh or at least it used to. I haven't done this for years. Maybe I should start it up again.

I try not to be too long winded so I will often not indulge in all the above blather and simply say, "reach in and take out one card" or "reach in and take any card you like". Anything to avoid saying, "take a card"