talkmagic.co.uk

I was wondering, how do you guys present your card magic, that separates it from the general preconception that people have with cards? By that I mean the old "21 card trick" thought, that everyone associates with kids and your favourite uncle at christmas.
I ask, because when I started performing in my high school at eleven years of age, I encountered a lot of this type of thinking. I overcame this in a few ways:
To start with, I never use the phrase "card trick". I personally hate that phrase. If I ever have to use it, I use "card effect", or "let me show you something with cards". Also, I use (as you probably know), a theme that relates especially well to card magic- gambling and cons etc.

So, how do the rest of you overcome this preconception, or do you think there isn't one and that I'm just talking rubbish?

Over to you.....

Never call it a card effect to an audience, they will have no idea what you mean.

I remember doing an interview for the Stage Newspaper and saying "magic effect", which completely confused the poor guy, so I had to explain the terminology to him.

I have no problems in saying "Heres a quick trick"

Magic Mark wrote:Never call it a card effect to an audience, they will have no idea what you mean.

I remember doing an interview for the Stage Newspaper and saying "magic effect", which completely confused the poor guy, so I had to explain the terminology to him.

I have no problems in saying "Heres a quick trick"

Like I said, I only use it when I have to ie. If someone asks me specifically, so, "what tricks do you do". Otherwise, I use phrases like "card magic", or "let me show you something...."

Two situations for me: I don't really perform that much for money these days, and mostly do just family/friend stuff, but naturally I'd tend to say "Let me show you something with those cards" or "Want to see a bit of magic".

Frankly, I quite warm to the term "card trick", as really that's what I'd be doing—and immediately it can be related to by the layperson. Although, I don't like the term "card magic" in context of magician>spectator—but it's a phrase that I'm happy with when speaking with other magicians.

Something else which occurs to me lately is that when being ASKED to do magic, I often get asked "Can you do a card trick please?".

So yeah, in terms of 'natural speak', I guess 'card trick' is the phrase most universally understood, accepted and mentioned.

I usually start of with a gambling effect. With the relatively recent boom in poker I find it easier to start with a gambling trick.

Personnally I hate stating that I am about to perform magic with cards, it generally doesn't go down well for the people I preform for. So an opening gambling routine with a gradual build towards more "magical" effects is my usual way.

Without wanting to sound condesending (talking down to you ). I think the problem you have encountered is an age group thing. I started getting into magic when the social groups I was in enjoyed going to balls, cocktail parties and the like, where more often than not, magi were performing. Therefore they have moved away from the family get togethers at Christmas kids love so much!

thebigcheese wrote:Without wanting to sound condesending (talking down to you ). I think the problem you have encountered is an age group thing. I started getting into magic when the social groups I was in enjoyed going to balls, cocktail parties and the like, where more often than not, magi were performing. Therefore they have moved away from the family get togethers at Christmas kids love so much!

Actually, I was thinking just that when I finished posting the initial question. However, I didn't want to put anything in as I wanted to see the type of responses I got. Something else that popped into my head was the the fact that whenever I perform, there's always at least one person who has done the 21 card trick before I got there- so even if they didn't have that impression before about card magic, they sure do when I turn up!.
However, i don't think it's strictly an age group thing. I see in a thread in the support section that Lommie has a client who basically wants a "glorified babysitter"- which is how many adults actually view magic. I remember a charity gig I performed at about a year ago, where I did a gambling routine, and it took a while for anyone to actually pay attention. I even had a few kids dropped off to "watch the magician" too. The answer to that problem though was a swift colour change and a quick ACR for a couple of stragglers. And as they say, "people go where people are". The rest of the evening was quite busy after that /

thebigcheese wrote:Without wanting to sound condesending (talking down to you ). I think the problem you have encountered is an age group thing. I started getting into magic when the social groups I was in enjoyed going to balls, cocktail parties and the like, where more often than not, magi were performing. Therefore they have moved away from the family get togethers at Christmas kids love so much!

Actually, I was thinking just that when I finished posting the initial question. However, I didn't want to put anything in as I wanted to see the type of responses I got. Something else that popped into my head was the the fact that whenever I perform, there's always at least one person who has done the 21 card trick before I got there- so even if they didn't have that impression before about card magic, they sure do when I turn up!.
However, i don't think it's strictly an age group thing. I see in a thread in the support section that Lommie has a client who basically wants a "glorified babysitter"- which is how many adults actually view magic. I remember a charity gig I performed at about a year ago, where I did a gambling routine, and it took a while for anyone to actually pay attention. I even had a few kids dropped off to "watch the magician" too. The answer to that problem though was a swift colour change and a quick ACR for a couple of stragglers. And as they say, "people go where people are". The rest of the evening was quite busy after that /

I performed a bit at my brother's wedding the other week and a lot of people knew or could see i was doing magic so they asked me to show them something.

I like to instantly hand the deck out for shuffling to someone just to reinforce the fact that it is a regular deck and meanwhile talk a little bit about magic in general.
I find this works very well and people see you more as an overall entertainer rather than just "a kid with cards" as some put it.

Its hard to break bad habits like saying, "This is a regular deck of cards", "I have a couple of silks", I would like to do an effect for you", "I will use an ordinary coin". I'm ok with the words magic trick because that is what they are comfortable with and if they say they know a trick that uses 21 cards, I say I've seen that one and I go into the routine that allows me to peek the selected card and when they trick seems to go bad, I can produce their card. They never get a chance to do the 21 card trick. Then there are some who are obsessed with figureing out how you could have done the trick. I tell them its just a trick! Its for you to enjoy but they don't listen and thats too bad.
Al

Hello cymru 1991, and everyone else.

In '13 Steps to Mentalism' Corinda discusses doing mentalist effects with cards and suggests that the magician calls anything he or she does with them 'an experiment' so that people won't think it's 'just a magic trick'.

In some situations, I've found that quite a useful introduction, as it divorces the proceedings from those of the 21 card trick type. Even if you then go and and do the 21 card trick, I suppose.

In Tommy Wonder's books, he discusses how to approach people, and has some interesting ideas about introducing the cards and the like.

Otherwise, you could start with a non-card effect and then move on to cards.

Hope this helps,

Max.

thebigcheese wrote:Without wanting to sound condesending (talking down to you ).

Stole that from Derren Brown, didn't you?

I just say magic trick no matter what, or "some magic."