Geal wrote:coins:
pros: everyone has them, so they're good for impromptu. Small and easy to hide/dispose of. Good for closeup/street magic. wide range of tricks
cons: usually easy to spot a fake or gaffed coin. since they're small, sleights may take quite a bit of practice and dexterity to handle. bad for stage magic.
cards:
pros: everyone knows them. good for visual, mentalism, and most genres of magic. good for closeup/street magic. wide range of tricks
cons:many tricks are just variations of each other. advanced sleights require a lot of practice and dedication. bad for stage magic. pretty cliche when it comes to magic, since many people know basic card tricks
sponges, hankerchiefs:
pros: good for stage magic. very visual. less cliche than cards. comfortable to use because of softness and feel
cons: harder to obtain that cards or coins, leading to people thinking they're gaffs. bright colors stand out, so if you're not careful with sleights you can be spotted.
ropes:
pros: very common item, very visual.
cons: for some reason, people always seem to think that tricks with ropes always involve trick raopes, so i suppose you'd need a really good routine to make specs think that everything is real magic.
Pretty much sums it up.
AJ wrote:Thanks i just pick up bobos modern coin magic from lybray.com
Or get it from The Learned Pig Project for free.
Or, better yet, actually buy the book, so that you have it on your book shelf and the beginning of a library. I have over 150 books in my library, but then again I've been collecting them for some years. Consider that if you start collecting books now, by the time you're 25, you'll have several dozen of them, waiting at your fingertips anytime you need to research something rather than having to open a bunch of programs to read what you want to read.
Just a thought, though. Do what is most comfortable for you.
Lady of Mystery wrote:My advice would be to have a go at all of them and see what you enjoy doing the most.
Absolutely. Try to stay away from overloading yourself, but give a bit of each a try and see which you gravitate toward. While I'll be the first to tell you that it is your audience who will decide what you show on a regular basis (some things you really like won't go over well with an audience and, even though you might hate it, you simply won't have any business showing it if nobody but you likes it), you still have to please yourself, otherwise you simply will not be happy with what you do.
If you're not happy, it will show through in your performance.
greedoniz wrote:On the ropes front I cant recommend Richard Sanders Fiber Optics routine enough.
Good call. I have yet to find anyone who has anything bad to say about Fiber Optics. The pitfall to avoid, here, however, is becoming a cabon copy of someone else. When you do a trick, say Fiber Optics, then your audience should see AJ doing the trick, not a Richard Sanders mimic.
Read my signature.
abraxus wrote:the more you fragment, the less you'll learn in my opinion...stick to maybe two major types at a time until you're confident enough to move onto something else...
Absolutely. While this may seem to contradict the Lady's comment, it shouldn't. In other words, try a little of this and a little of that, see what you gravitate toward, then take abraxus's advice and put your time heavily into that which makes you happiest and therefore will do the best with.
Wills wrote:Oh and get yourself a TT, its very cheap and you can start almost immediately with it.
But don't fall into that age old conundrum believing that the TT must match your skin color and thumb type perfectly. Should you decide to get a TT and want to learn how to use it properly, give me a PM and I'll turn you onto a trilogy of articles (that won't cost you a single penny) that will teach you the proper handling of a TT.
AJ wrote:What do you do if you get caught on the haunted deck and they see the string. My bro saw it and what should i say?
The same question that each and everyone of us asked when we first started because each and everyone of us was guilty of blowing it when we first started. And, no matter how much you practice, no matter how perfected you have your trick, from time to time situations crop up and you'll blow it again.
It happens.
But, how do you deal with it? That comes with time and experience. Sometimes, you simply have to cut your losses and move on to something else. Other times, you'll be able to actually turn a bad spot into a winning proposition. The more you perform, the more comfortable you become, the better you get at turning a screw up into a triumph. Experience.
And don't ever let any magician, regardless of experience, tell you that nothing bad ever happens to them or that nothing ever goes wrong for them. Anyone who says that is a liar. I've been doing magic a long, long time and it still happens to me. It happens to David Copperfield, it happens to David Blaine and Criss Angel, it happens to Lance Burton.
It is the simple fact that comes with live theater. As you grow in experience, you'll learn to get past it. You'll learn to watch other magicians and pick up their "outs" and you'll find your own "outs" too.
Just keep in mind that when you do blow it, like you did for your brother, you have to analyze precisely what you did wrong. In the future, you'll know what to look out for when showing it to other folks. Use this as a learning experience and it just ain't so damn bad.
Johnny Wizz wrote:One thing a lot of other posters have said here which I agree with totally. Don't spend a load of money on flashy gimmick tricks. We have all done it and we all have shelves of tricks gathering dust!
We all agree with that. And, we all did it when we were in your shoes - just starting. It is bad for the wallet, but it does have its benefits. It allows you to get a better overview of what's out there and what works and what doesn't for you. It's also (and I hate to say it) a lot of fun...Getting that trick home and figuring it out. Stuff. Man, it's all about stuff.
I think it's also very much a rite of passage.
But, in between buying stuff, buy books of magic. Build that library. More than anything else, you'll refer to those books for the rest of your life.
Mike.
