talkmagic.co.uk

I was at an outdoor mall this weekend and past by a magic booth. I decided to stop and watch for a few minuts to watch.

The first trick the magician performed was the one where the hoops get stuck together and unstuck. He did the entire trick without saying a word. At the end of the trick the crowd that had gathered where completely reactionless.

Next he did a rising card routine where all he ever said was. This is your card. Not even the younger kids where impressed.

Lastely I saw him do some coin magic for the booth next to him and he did it with a look on his face that said, "Oh yea, I do magic, I'm the man. Don't you all wish you where as cool as me?"

Anyway I was at least able to walk out of this horrific display of magic with 2 lessons.

1 A trick is worthless without padder (I know that sometimes silence is
golden, but not for every trick)

2 That when performing a trick and afterwords be humble.

Anyway I found this to be a moment where I "saw the light."

Indeed, i always say how important patter and peformance is. You need to develop a character for your magic.

Teller can pull off being silent perfectly. I think it's the way he interacts with his spectators and does things that are straightforward and bizarre (Needles, needle thru arm, killing little bunnies) that allows his to be patterless.

Patter does NOT have to verbal. Teller does it with his little facial and body movements. Illusionists does this as well, they communicate with the audience without saying a single word

Just goes to show how important the presentation is when performing.

Presentation is very important. With the right words you can create expectation and make the finale more powerful.
There are far too many spoilt brats on youtube whose "patter" consists of pick a card, I've found your card, aren't I cool!

There are certain effects that can be done silently, but those work best with a comedy job.

I used to ( say used to, I mean a couple months back ) where I would do a nice little routine where I constantly got the selected card wrong. I wold just use sighs and huffs and puffs, but the routine involved numerous colour changes and a couple of gaffs I picked up from cards4magic.

After a while, I would just reach in my pocket and hand them a blank card that read 'this is your card'. I would erdnase that into a double blank card which would then become a black and white drawn card ( the selection ) and then twirl changed into the actual selection. The end part was part of a an effect by Richard sanders.

People also do silent sponge routines etc.. can be great and beautiful to watch.

But I have said this time and time again, people who perform magic with a cocky attitude just look like t**ts. The like of Sadowitz can get away with it, but the whole 'look at me' attitude really grates on me. You have to interact with your spectator. If you dont really have good patter or are not comfortable speaking, you CAN get away with saying little.

Silence can speak volumes, but you still need to 'communicate' and it seems this guy was only interested in making himself look 'the man' which he obviously is not.

That sounds like an amazing routine, I.D.

As others have said, it's perfectly possible to perform silently, and still make an effective presentation. From what donkeylord has said, the person he saw (I am reluctant to describe him as either a performer or a magician) just did some tricks.

Maybe he thought he was replicating David Blaine's minimalist approach. The thing that many people miss is that David has thought about his presentation carefully. Oh, and he's also on TV and you don't know how much other material he's already shown the spectators to warm them up!

The rising card effect is a bit flat to start with. If it's just "choose a card, put it in the deck, look, it rises out," there's a big risk of people wondering why anyone would bother putting it back in the deck at all. In my opinion, that effect needs building up.

As Albert Camus said, "Lies are a beautiful dust that enhance all objects." That's fast becoming my favourite phrase.

What the guy in the booth was doing was tantamount to someone putting a Fabergé Egg on eBay and adding the title "Egg", without a picture or a tantalising description.

the saddest thing about watching this guy is that he sucked all the fun out of his tricks. (Oh and this is just a side note but everything at the booth was about $10 more than they should have been)

Has anyone else here ever done a complete show/routine in complete silence sucessfully? (Apart from those that don't really need patter, such as using silks. I'm thinking things like card/coin routines)

Just a wonder, after watching some of Teller's stuff. He pulls it off well, and it makes you wonder if it's something that can be easily done

I do a card to mouth routine in silence whenever im working at a nightclub, it gets the best reaction.

I have 2 routines one is for working where they can hear me the other is for when they cant..
both work well but they wouldnt work at the wrong place.

I couldn't do my talking routines in a noisy room obviously, and the silent one i could not do in a quiet room.

I do agree that patter is important though!

hence why i absolutely hate the way magic is going at the moment youtube! music in the background words on a screen!!

Have a look at the Review at http://www.talkmagic.co.uk/ftopic6303.php then at the link to the vid at http://www.thesilenttreatment.co.uk/.
By definition this has to be done in silence!

There's a clip of Blaine doing a silent card trick for a deaf couple. Strangely enough, it's the best patter I've seen from him.

It's not so much the patter that's important I think, rather the presentation as a whole. I've got routines that are silent or done to music with no patter and they work well.

I once saw Tabary's rope routine perfdormed silently and it was brilliant, in some ways better than Tabary's own performance.