talkmagic.co.uk

Hi Guys and Girls,

I went through a phase of performing magic around 8 or so years ago in my teens and into early 20's. I had a few performances at the odd wedding and party but it died out, I think perhaps out of working shifts and then losing practice and motivation.

Recently I was digging through a bunch of old papers and found the convention programme from Blackpool back in 2002 and it made me suddenly think of all the great things magic offered.

I ordered Royal Road to Card magic last month as well as Bobo’s Coin magic but reading through them, I'm starting to lose interest again in trying to learn move after move and slight after slight.

This brings me to writing this post, I am really keen to get back into the magic world and start performing again, not specifically for money but just to be good at something and have a hobby once again.

Can anyone recommend some good starting material to get back into it again. I've worked through the two books above and then Daryl’s video series of Card slights but none of it is getting the excitement of performing tricks again.

Maybe this is why I lost interest in the first place, and understanding that to be truly amazing at magic you need to practice the slights, surely that can't be the only way forward with most of the material on the market today?

Any advice and assistance is greatly received,
Thanks in advance

JJ

Mods - unless any specific replies are forthcoming this can be removed, I have read the Sticky and it answers some questions but not the specifics.

Cheers
JJ

Once you have half a dozen strong tricks you can forget about tricks and sleights, and begin working on presentation. Thats where the fun is. Just go out and do tricks for people.

The best books on performance that I have seen are anything on comedy by Gene Perret (Bob Hope's gag writer) and Jay Sankey wrote a good book on stand-up a few years ago. His magic doesn't do much for me, but the stand-up book was good.

Magic should not be an endless progression of more and more difficult moves. It should be about entertaining people.

Agree with Tony above, and I'd say if you've gone through RRTCM and Bobo's and you don't feel excited its either time to start developing your own tricks with the numerous sleights you must have already acquired, or its time to look for another hobby.

Grab yourself a copy of Mark Wilson's Complete Course, it's got a very wide range of different types of magic in there. Plenty to keep yoou interested in there and nothing too difficult.

Magic isn't about being able to do loads of fancy sleight of hand, it's about appearing to do impossible things- loads of which can be done with really basic methods. Sure, you'll know that you didn't do something that would impress another magician, but chances are no matter how good you ever get you'll never impress all other magicians. Just focus on doing amazing things that entertain and impress everybody else.

In RRTCM, just focus on the first chapter on the overhand shuffle and learn a basic force like the cross-cut force. Just with that info you already know how to keep track of a randomly selected card or make your audience member select the card you want. Then, just work out various ways of dressing up what you're doing and revealing the card and you can start performing to people.

For example: you can create a real miracle by forcing a card on someone, shuffling it in to the pack and then revealing a duplicate card from under their chair or in your wallet or even stuck on the other side of a window- all of which you can set up in advance.

Or get someone to pick a card and return it to the deck, control it to the top and then get them to cut the pack into two. Have a brief chat about luck or intuition or any old rubbish just long enough for them to forget which pile is which and show them their card on top of one of the piles whilst telling them that they cut to it. They'll be amazed by your unearthly powers and probably want to give you all the money in their wallet or their first born child.

Then, when you start getting a feel for performing, go back and look at the more advanced sleights and expand your repertoire as and when you feel confident and you'll gradually learn ways of replicating those same feats without having to set them up in advance or you can create even more impressive reveals like showing that their card has turned over in the deck or has somehow become trapped inside a cake.

If you try to learn to much in one go, you won't spend enough time on each sleight to be very good at it and you'll get downhearted with your poor skills. Just work slowly and steadily through it until you feel comfortable enough to move on and you'll maintain your interest.

TonyB wrote:Once you have half a dozen strong tricks you can forget about tricks and sleights, and begin working on presentation. Thats where the fun is. Just go out and do tricks for people.

The best books on performance that I have seen are anything on comedy by Gene Perret (Bob Hope's gag writer) and Jay Sankey wrote a good book on stand-up a few years ago. His magic doesn't do much for me, but the stand-up book was good.

Magic should not be an endless progression of more and more difficult moves. It should be about entertaining people.

Would you recommend anything in particular by Gene Perret, as a quick look at his website shows he has many things...