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If your card effects are coming across as boring then its time to look at your presentation skills, in my opinion. A bad workman always blames his tools. To say outright that card magic is boring is nonsense. Card magic isnt anything, magic in general isnt anything but fancy puzzles. It is up to us to make it something, to make it magic. There are many boring performers who quite frankly, are not up to par, but the deck of cards they hold are certainly not to blame.

jim

jim ferguson wrote:If your card effects are coming across as boring then its time to look at your presentation skills, in my opinion. A bad workman always blames his tools. To say outright that card magic is boring is nonsense. Card magic isnt anything, magic in general isnt anything but fancy puzzles. It is up to us to make it something, to make it magic. There are many boring performers who quite frankly, are not up to par, but the deck of cards they hold are certainly not to blame.

jim

I agree 100%.

Saying cards are boring is like saying playing the piano is boring. Sure, hearing a kid play chopsticks badly is painful. But hearing Schiff play Bach's Preludes and Fugues is as close to heaven as this atheist will ever get.

Guys, those of you who are going down brilliantly with cards (and I don't doubt that some of you genuinely do) are going down so well because of your talent as entertainers, not because of the intrinsic entertainment value of cards.

If you switched to coins, sponge balls, or mentalism with the same presentational skills, you would still be very entertaining.

My point is that card tricks in themselves are boring. If you just do an intricate trick, even a highly skilled one, and invest no personality in it, then it will bore, no matter how well you do it. For instance if you do the ambitious card the second time the card appears at the top is an anti-climax, and it goes downhill from there UNLESS YOU CAN MAKE THE AUDIENCE CARE.

Some guys can. I could watch Bill Malone all night. But let's be honest. Most magicians are hobbiests, and most do not invest enough time or effort into presentation. And when they take out a deck of cards people make their excuses and leave. Just because some of you do it right does not invalidate the point.

If you just do an intricate trick, even a highly skilled one, and invest no personality in it, then it will bore, no matter how well you do it. For instance if you do the ambitious card the second time the card appears at the top is an anti-climax, and it goes downhill from there UNLESS YOU CAN MAKE THE AUDIENCE CARE.

By this reasoning, any trick without personality is boring - and I know I've certainly seem plenty of boring coin tricks, sponge tricks, etc... where I didn't care.

The second phase of an ACR should not be anti-climatic, as basic structuring in magic effects, dictates, good, better, best - this is how my routines are set out. Of course there is a point when it becomes self limiting, when you have to know when to stop, but in my routines there is a build towards a climax, not to an anti-climax.

Jing wrote:By this reasoning, any trick without personality is boring - and I know I've certainly seem plenty of boring coin tricks, sponge tricks, etc... where I didn't care.

So have we all. But for some odd reason boring performers seem to be drawn towards card magic, which is a great pity.

True, possibly because cards lend themselves so easily to the numerous, self working, counting, i'll just put the cards behind my back, bla bla bla, urghhh - bad magic.

My routines are not like that, promise.

Self working coin effects, are fewer in number.

Butt of course some of the self workers are gems. So really it all comes down to presentation and selecting effects, as well as technical skill?

There is no such thing as no such thing as bad tricks. Just like there is no such thing as Listz or Rachmaninoff or Horowitz or Rostprochovich earning a reputation in classical music from playing chopsticks and pachelbell.

No Logic can explain why you wouldn't pick the best material available to you and why instead you would try and polish a turd. Very occasionally, a good performer might just make a bad trick good. But if I went to a classical music concert, I would hope that the best material possible would be chosen not just randomly picked and then played with pretentious ham-acted emotions to dress it up. I'd rather here Chopin op 10. no. 3 played with the genuine feeling it creates.

spooneythegoon wrote:So really it all comes down to presentation and selecting effects, as well as technical skill?

No. Technical skill is irrelevant. The public doesn't care. All you need is sufficient skill to fool them, nothing more. The rest is self-indulgence. It all comes down to selecting the right trick, then working on PRESENTATION, nothing more.

Well technical skill DOES matter, but not as much as most people tend to think. As long as you have decent skill with whatever you do. It should work out well. I think I recall reading a Jamy ian Swiss article where he mentioned that Laypeople tend to see the bigger picture, while magicians are more entertained and fooled by novelty.

TonyB wrote:No. Technical skill is irrelevant. The public doesn't care. All you need is sufficient skill to fool them, nothing more. The rest is self-indulgence.

You know, I was starting to agree with you till I read that I explained on another thread (Perfection/Misdirection) where I stand on the issue of technical ability, and also explained why I take this view. There are, and always have been, certain magicians who choose to take their technical proficiancy to a higher level. Often these guys are praised by the public and other magicians, Michael Vincent is an exellent example of this. Ive never heard anyone say that Michaels desire to have perfect sleight of hand is self indulgant !

If someone wants to be better than average, and push their skills that little bit further, then I think it should be encouraged.

jim

Jim, I have no issue with technical proficiency, but a point comes at which it becomes redundant.
I have seen Michael Vincent perform, and I have seen Bill Malone. I know Bill Malone is highly technically proficient, but the stuff I saw him perform was the simple stuff. And he was by far the more entertaining performer.
If we are performing for fellow magicians the technical stuff might be appropriate, but if we are performing for the public then it should all be about the entertainment value. That's what they are interested in.

TonyB wrote:Jim, I have no issue with technical proficiency, but a point comes at which it becomes redundant.
I have seen Michael Vincent perform, and I have seen Bill Malone. I know Bill Malone is highly technically proficient, but the stuff I saw him perform was the simple stuff. And he was by far the more entertaining performer.
If we are performing for fellow magicians the technical stuff might be appropriate, but if we are performing for the public then it should all be about the entertainment value. That's what they are interested in.

If 'entertainment value' is all that matters, then there are no need for tricks at all since you could entertain someone without any tricks whatsoever. (In fact I think magicians should be able to). Since you do magic however, there is clearly something in magic about it which has some unique form of entertainment value.

If I was a comedian and I wasn't doing everything to be as good a comedian as I could- a few people smile politley, so I'm doing fine- then most sensible people would ask: why not? So why in magic is it acceptable not to do one's best?

Nobody is saying 'Don't concentrate on presentation skills'. I believe the argument is more like: 'concentrate on improving anything you possibly can to make the best possible piece of entertaining magic'. Otherwise your argument is similar to Arthur Conan Doyle's when he argues that the memory is like a filing cabinet and in order to remember one thing you must throw out another... a false dillemma of 'either/ or' when the option of 'both' exists.

The only other possible disagreement is to reject that deception- or more importantly the consequent magical experience- is not at all important because 'people just want to be entertained and nothing more' in which case it begs the question: why do magic?

It is a sad day for magic once everyone starts saying 'things are fine, leave them as they are', 'This is all is expected- cheap gags and anything which decieves- that is all I will do and nothing more'. I used to think the whole point of doing the impossible was that just that- exceeding everyday expectations and doing something of another realm, something unfathomable. Apparantly though I am decieved- any old thing will do, as long as I don't exactley how you're doing it and I am smiling at the time.

Sam, you are missing my point. I am not saying that deception is not important, and that anything will do. What I am saying is that once we are sure we have a strong trick, all our effort should go into presentation.

Magicians who constantly strive for technical skill are often doing it for their own indulgence rather than for the entertainment of their audience. I remember sitting with a group of magicians watching Lennart Green doing centre deals. Everyone loved it, but to me it looked like he was dealing cards from the middle of the deck.

In fairness I have also seen him be very entertaining when he was not impressing magicians.

I think magicians in particular (because there are so many bad ones) need an occasional reminder that the audience comes first, not their ego. And audiences want entertainment, not displays of mind-numbing technicality.

TonyB wrote:My point is that card tricks in themselves are boring

Yes, we all understand you believe that. However, as has been shown by numerous examples, we all disagree with you and think it is a ridiculous statement.

Bad card tricks done badly are bad. No doubt.

Bad coin tricks done badly are also bad. Same with rope and sponge.

Bad tricks done badly are bad.

But to say all card tricks are intrinsically boring is as silly as saying all coin magic is boring.