talkmagic.co.uk

I know this has come up frequently before (what counts as 'impromptu') but I just noticed that the International Magic website now has a link to its 'Impromptu Magic' section.

http://www.internationalmagic.com/acata ... Magic.html

Impressively consistent, as I wouldn't regard a single thing listed there as an impromptu trick. In fact, the first one (self-folding bill) I feel it's positively misleading to put under that heading. At least with, say, Loops you're aware that you'll need to be wearing a loop before you can perform without warning, but if you didn't know the method, you'd assume the bill effect would enable you to simply grab a bill and have it fold itself.

Tch.

My definition of 'impromptu' would mean anything done with a truly innocent pack of borrowed cards, borrowed coins and so on - a lot of self working tricks, or those where a bit of innocent 'checking' of the deck allows subtle stacking would also be under this heading. I'd also include effects and routines where I'm already kitted out with the gizmo such as a TT, gaffed coins which can be switched in or even things like Coinvexed which can be carried around just in case they're needed. If I have to nip out to the Gent's to set IT or other gimmicks in place then it isn't impromptu.

Mandrake wrote: I'd also include effects and routines where I'm already kitted out with the gizmo such as a TT, gaffed coins which can be switched in or even things like Coinvexed which can be carried around just in case they're needed.

Ah, y'see, Mandy, that's where I'd differ. I'd count as impromptu - spontaneous and unprepared - only those things one can do without needing to have anything with you. As you say, one can, for example, sneak a simple stack into an innocent pack of cards that are not yours and have just been thrust into your hands. That's impromptu. Something requiring a dupe I don't count - even if you happen carry a dupe around everywhere. (Which some people do - or do similar - and is fine.) The problem with going down the road of labelling as impromptu things that a particular person, with the extras he always has on him, can do is that there's then no clear cut-off point. You end up, via Int Magic's trick list, with D Copperfield strolling across the theatre he's simply in night after night, motioning towards the perspex box he always has lying there, and doing an impromptu flying levitation using bits and bobs that, whether he did the levitation or not, would be already set up and ready to be operated by stage hands.

Basically, all I'm saying is that, as it happens, I'm never anywhere without a magnet: but, even so, I'd still think it not on to advertise a trick as 'impromptu' if you couldn't do it unless you had a magnet with you.

You're right of course Sex, it depends on your interpretation of the word - I only go slightly further down the road that you do. One man's 'impromptu' is another man's 'Sheesh this is taking bloody hours to set up!'. Advertising and promotion of all such things is to be taken with a large pinch of salt - and disbelief.....

It certainly is an extraordinary list of effects!

The problem is that 'impromptu' means different things to different people, as Mandrake's already said. It can mean:

Magic performed only with stuff that is given to you/borrowed/picked up off a table, or from the condiments display at a pub.

Magic that is performed with (regular) things you carry around with you.

Magic that is performed with slightly less regular things that you happen to have with you ('impromptu' can mean simply that you hadn't prepared).

Magic that is gimmicked/set-up to Hell, but made to look like it isn't. I think this is going too far. A lot of the TV 'street magic' falls into this category.

Magic that is obviously trickery, but which you can perform at a moment's notice, because of your pockets bulging with half dollars and funny little nesting brass boxes.

I must admit that the last of those had never occurred to me as remotely falling into the 'impromptu' category until I clicked that link, mainly because I don't think they are impromptu. And I still don't.

However, some of the items, such as cigarette through coin, can be. Yes, the dividing line is blurry, but where's the line between a close-up effect and a parlour piece? When is a stage item suitable for cabaret? There's no clear line, but it doesn't mean the division is wrong, just that it may be hard to classify some things.

From the Compact Oxford English Dictionary:

impromptu
/impromptyoo/

• adjective & adverb unplanned or unrehearsed.

• noun (pl. impromptus) a short piece of instrumental music, especially a solo, reminiscent of an improvisation.

— ORIGIN from Latin in promptu ‘in readiness’.

Doesn't help much but goes from 'unplanned' which is how most would use the word to 'in readiness' which would seem to include pockets full of little brass boxes, gaffed coins and 1001 other potential bits of kit which can be carried by a magish....

I tend to look at impromptu from the spectators point of view. To me I tend to think of something that if a spectator say's 'can you show me some magic' you can do with no apparent preparation. Coin magic with borrowed coins fits, even coin magic where you switch their coin for a gimmick still fits in my mind because it's still impromptu to the spectators. It's the same for something like a TT vanish of some eveyday object like a chocolate wrapper.

Things like sponge balls doesn't fit to me because altough in the true sense of the word that are impromptu as there's no set up it's not impromptu to the spec because you're introducing some strange objects.

pop up tie impromptu?

for where?
weddings, work, and god forbid, grannys funeral?

Mandrake wrote:Doesn't help much but goes from 'unplanned' which is how most would use the word to 'in readiness' which would seem to include pockets full of little brass boxes, gaffed coins and 1001 other potential bits of kit which can be carried by a magish....

I think the key to the way I view it is 'reminiscent of an improvisation'. Lomster's description pretty much covers it.

Personally, I am still against the 'very highly set-up, but looks natural' effect being considered impromptu, but there's definitely room for argument.

impromptu, in my mind, is being able to perform...well...impromptu, unplanned e.t.c

Doing a card trick with my deck of cards isn;t impromptu, in my opinion. If someone hands me a deck of cards, and I perform, that is impromptu.

Impromptu is stuff that I can perform anytime, anywhere, without knowing in advance that I am going to perform it.

So empty pockets, no pre-show e.t.c

so things like PK touches (no loops), PK time, "mind reading", borrowed objects, are impromptu

things like sponge balls, loops, folding coins, a crushed can of coke that you "happen to find then restore and find coke inside", are, in my opinion, not impromptu - even though they appear to be so from the layperson

impromptu is impromptu.

If you were to sell an item of magoic, it is either impromptu, or not.

If you say "appears to be impromptu" then that is fine as well...because you are saying "appears to be" rather than "is impromptu".

So in my mind impromptu is, to use Tomo's favourite word, naked