talkmagic.co.uk

Hi there!

I am a beginner card magician, and to be honest I never intend on becomming a pro. I am just doing this for a bit of fun and to have some tricks to entertain friends with at parties! My current repertoire consists of 'Do as I do' and 'Ashes on the arm', both of which are very basic. I am working towards a decent Svengali routine and the use of the ID.

I am interested in purchasing a resource of card tricks, which require little to no sleights (as a student, I don't have the time to practice sleights). I have come across the website 'Encyclopedia of Magic' or 'EOM' which has many high quality tutorial videos on cool tricks of all kinds. I have tried using books such as RRTCM, however find it impossibly wordy to understand - I much prefer learning from video.

I would love to hear from anyone who is a member of the site (it costs around £70 for 12 months). Also, for similar money, I could buy Paul Wilson's 5 DVD set of RRTCM, however I'm not sure about it. The good thing about EOM is that they constantly upload new tricks as well as videos on the foundations of card magic.

If there are other alternatives that I have not considered, please let me know. Remember though, I am a beginner and simply don't have the time to learn sleights.

Many thanks and all the best,

Ranald.

By the way, I hope this is the right place to post such a question, I haven't quite found my way around the forum yet!

Good question and appropriate to raise here.

I have not heard of this site so cannot comment.

I think it is too easy to get sucked into lots of books, dvds, and websites etc. that teach card techniques.
It is important to learn a few techniques and have some technical skills. By all mean consider the site and RRTCM, but please bear in mind that sucess in magic does not come from knowledge of lots of techniques. At some point you should consider learning audience control, presentation, developing a character or stage persona, and concentrate of projecting your personalty.

The best way to learn magic is go out there and perform, then analyse how you could do it better.

Best wishes and welcome to the site.

It started off as a couple of guys on Youtube like DisturbReality and Mismag etc. They made some really good videos for some sleights and flourishes. At the end of last year ( I Think ) they made an announcement that they were going to be doing the site you mentioned. I cant comment on their newer videos because Im too cheap to pay, but I did learn a few good sleights and improved some others from the free videos they done before.

Ps if you dont want to do sleights get yourself an ID

Thanks for the help guys! I would really like to speak to someone who Is a paying member of the site though.

I did buy an ID... Just need to perfect using it now! Are there any other really simple but effective trick decks that I should look into?

Many thanks,

Ranald

It seems very expensive to me, I'd personally go for a good book or DVD. RRTCM would probably be far better value for money and you'll always have it rather than having to pay a yearly subscription.

Check out the Encyclopedia of Card Magic, nowhere near as expensive as £70 a year and contains more stuff than most performers could use in several lifetimes!

As I said earlier, I much prefer learning magic from visual sources such as colour photos or video. I don't think it would be worth me buying another wordy book which will inevitably end up gathering dust.

I am currently working through the R Paul Wilson RRTCM and can recommend it. As well as teaching the basics there are plenty of impressive tricks.

I have to admit I'm not sure I understand you being adamant that you 'don't have time to learn sleights' though. A sleight takes a few minutes to learn and then a bit of practice to get half decent at it. Surely as a student you have time waiting for lectures and such like to have a deck of cards in your hand practicing a move? Just a thought especially if you have the time to sit watching tutorial videos.

Shaun.




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$5 for 3 days access that's £3.20. If you are curious it's worth a shot better than buyin a trick deck. Your garunteed to find something worth £3 but as I said before apI think most of it is based on card and sponge sleights.

Saying you cannot 'go with wordy books' Ranald says a lot about you.
Were you absent a lot or disliked school ?

Reading books is a discipline you should cultivate not discard beacuse some of them are , to you, perhaps 'wordy'.

For an easy to read Card book--try Paul Clive's Card Tricks Without Skill. I bought the first edition from him in Blackpool around 1946
If you cannot follow PC's words then you are doomed to failure.
There is a beginning section on the various sleights you need to begin with.This is followed by numerous effects, some by famous UK magicians from the immediate Past.

A lazy magician is of no use to anyone.
Push yourself.

And you should alter that statement in your first post above.''To impress my friends'.
Alter it to 'Entertain my friends'.

Allen Tipton

Allen Tipton

Ranald wrote:
I am interested in purchasing a resource of card tricks, which require little to no sleights (as a student, I don't have the time to practice sleights).

There is always time to practice sleights! I have taken to practicing false cuts with a deck in new deck order without looking at my hands when watching TV and then in the adverts I can check if the deck is still in new deck order.
The BBM self working card tricks DVD may be of use to you, no sleights but good effects. I will be posting a review soon!
I'd actually suggest going back to RRTCM and reading it again, as useful DVDs go I've found the Elmsley Count Project excellent for learning (yes 2DVDs on just one slight).
I like the BBM house style and you may not.
People may make comments about Ellusionist but the first Crash course in card magic may suit your needs.

I have to agree with Allen - books are the best resource, and, in particular, the two books already mentioned - Encyclopedia of Card Tricks and Card Tricks without Skill. Books are also far more most-cost effective then DVDs.

RRCTM (the book) is heavy going and I can understand why it put you off. I'd suggest Walter Gibson's Complete Illustrated Book of Card Magic as a rather better alternative, though I think it's only available second-hand.

Barry

AND IF you go for Card Tricks Without Skill (it has had several editions) IGNORE Chapter V11--The Identity Pack.
I did buy this, in a separate booklet then, in my mid teens, straight from Paul Clive.
It is a pre arranged deck but at age 13/14 it puzzled me no end. Looked at it last week at age 79 AND it still puzzles me.!!!

So -- if I cannot master it after 70 years of magic--Ranald--you do not stand a chance.

However you should like the other contents and PC writes in a simple, practical to understand way.

CONTENTS.
1. Conjurer's terms & Artifices. pages 7 to 39
2. Beginner's Tricks pages 40 to 51
3. Impromptu Mysteries pages 53 to 74
4. Miscellaneous pages 75 to 101
5. Treated & Prepared cards. pages 102 to 118
6. Pre-Arrangement pages 119 to 144
7. The Identity Pack. pages 145 to 157
8. Contributions by Present Day Magicians (this was 1946) pages 158 to 190

There is also an INDEX of each chapter at the end of the book; showing each item or trick, & the method involved.

When I was a very young boy--my parents bought my first Magic Set from Paul Clive's shop on Central Drive, Blackpool
Then I discovered he had a tall round booth on Central Pier and daily he would demonsrate the tricks. You could look all round the booth with its glass windows and glory over the marvels on the small shelves.
Later I found his big Magic Shop on the North Pier. Fatal!!
Every Blackpool holiday the coach driver would drop me off there and later--much later--I would find my way to the boarding house.
After this my parents hardly ever saw me, except at meal & bed times, whenever we holidayed in Blackpool

My first Table, Die Box, Diminishing Cards, Wandering Block and several hundred other tricks came from there. Items like Return To Karnak (transposition of a tall Mummy) & Robbery On 5th.Avenue (these were made by the House of Veroni?? a place where ken Brooke worked in his early years) and even today I still have the Stamp Album from the North Pier Shop.

In 1981-The year after my Dante Show, I took my wife to Blackpool as she had never seen the Iluminations. Obviously I HAD to visit the North Pier.
Alas the Magic Shop had vanished BUT just round its corner was a small magic shop and behind the counter was--Paul Clive. Now white haired.
The big surprise was how small he was. In the Central Pier booth he would be on a raised floor and to a little kid, he looked like a blonde giant.
We had a long chat--I bought some stuff-had to for old time's sake. I gave him one of the programmes from my Dante Show-he is credited in it with starting me off--and some photographs of several of the illusions.
I also told him his brother Douglas Craggs book -=The ABC of Ventriloquism had been of enormous help to my becoming a Vent. It is still the best book on Vent techniques ever published and yes, I still have the original( 1944 on wartime paper) and the reprint--1969 (published by Faber who also republished Card Tricks Without Skill)

In 2006 I lectured on Kalanag the German post war illusionist to Blackpool Magicians Club. AND again went to the North Pier. Alas even the small shop had gone but from the old big shop I bought several non magic souvenirs.

Allen Tipton

Get Tarbell, the most comprehensive resource in magic. My grumble with the video magic sites is that it teaches trick after trick without paying attention to the philosophy that underpins the routine. When you buy a good book or a well-produced magic video you get the thinking behind the trick, the tips and tricks that make magic, magic.

Learning from books means you have to develop your own patter and presentation, lots of newcomers using DVDs tend to mimic the patter and style of the performer/presenter on the disc - not always a good idea!