talkmagic.co.uk

Hey folks, sorry if I cover old ground here but hey...

I was just writing on another thread and likened my juggling experience to magic. To explain, I used to do a lot of circus skills when I was younger, was involved in a juggling company etc and remember a few performances from others I had the pleasure to watch...with horror.

The best story to explain this, I watched a woman at Glastonbury Festival do an amazing diablo routine on the circus stage in front of a crowd of hundreds, maybe thousands. She was amazing, long stroy short and performed wonders to me in the know, and I thought the finale most grand was when she did 2 diablo's on one string and performed several amazing tricks. This I knew would have taken her many years to perfect, given it was my art at the time. However, the crowd were vaguely more impressed than some of her single diablo routine.

She was in the know tho, and to my horror the biggest round of applause was when she proceeded to get out three fire clubs and do a simple cascade. Really, that was it. (for non jugglers / diablo artists ... this is just shocking and makes you think no artist will ever get the respect they deserve from any other than another artist in the same format)

Now having just gotten into the magic scene I'm thinking there must be many correlations, such as building up over a few tricks to the one magic trick you spent the last year perfecting all the moves for, and then to have your greatest applause and excitement come from when you turn one sponge ball into two in someones hand

So, I was just wondering what for you all is your 'thanks for watching, this is gonna kill me, but hey here's three burning things' trick?

Of course if you can't do 2 diablo's first, that's not cool, (and not the point of the post) but what trick for you would sum up the story above?

This is very common. We tend to believe the more complicated something is, the more involved it is, the better it will be. This is the exact reason why magicians who do not perform in front of lay people know so many moves, so many effects. Yet the guy who makes a living at it knows five effects and three slights. We all went through the stage of knowing everything and then when real life hits and we go out and peform the laymen don't know we are doing a knuckle busting move, nor should they. They don't know we just found their card under extreme conditions. They don't know they just witnessed the perfect retention vanish.

What do they know?
You found the selected card in a shuffled deck.
You were just holding a coin and now it seems to be gone.
The red knife you were holding just turned white.
What is on the paper you are holding matches what they were thinking.
The weird disks are balanced on a string.

What should this tell you? It is not about the objects. It is not about the moves. It's about performance, personality and how well you connect with the audience.

A well vanished sponge ball will leave more of an impression than a long winded, technically difficult flourious routine every time. The fancy stuff is stricktly for hobbiests and those looking to impress their peers. The basics, the time tested material is for the professional.

Nothing is wrong with either.

When it comes to magic I have no interest in seeing clever moves. That is the equivalent of public wanking in my view. It is an entertainment art, and it has to be entertaining. Not skilled, not complex, not move heavy. If you can make that stuff entertaining, fine. But that is not what it is about. It is about entertaining an audience.

The juggler knew that, and I bet her heard did NOT sink when she ended on a flaming club cascade.

Ha! No I expect she was delighted with the reaction. Some good thoughts. Thanks!

It's true that some of the most simplest effects can astound laymen, yet a beautifully executed elmsley, bottom / top deal, one handed palm, pass or other sleight will go over their head. But that, I feel, is the whole object of what you are doing. All your hard work in practicing sleights should be invisible and understated, leaving the story / motive to convey what is happening.

If I go to a party with friends and I'm asked to bring cards and 'just show us one thing', 7 out of 10 times I would go for Cards Across - (I perform Las Vegas Leaper from the Michael Amaar Easy To Master Series). I feel it is light on sleights, you only really need to top palm and that is it. But the look on peoples faces when they count the cards out is nuts. They really cannot believe what is going on, and IMO it's a really, really basic effect but there you go, you're entertaining them. They have no clue what the mechanics are behind the effect and many of them don't really care.

I really do sympathise because it can be frustrating sometimes. You gonna hit them with your best work but the biggest gasps and applause come from some self-working effect which you've pushed to the back of your routines.

Yes it's the effect at the end of the day, and a good story to get you there I'm finding. Out of all the stuff I've purchased so far or learned from here and there, for me the 2 killer self workers that really impress people the most are Metal Sheep the gary jones and chris congreave style, and also from the very same dvd 'card 2 matchbox' It's amazingly satisfying and so much fun to see the reaction when the card turns up in the box. Along with the banter nobody even suspects it's left the deck at all. I've tried putting a little spin on that one recently by saying their magic match will make their card jump to the top of the deck, but....oops it hasn't worked! Curious....

Can't rate that dvd highly enough just now!I feel bad about the title of this thread now hah, it's not sad at all, just true, and quite handy really.

In terms of "trick where you work your behind off and get an average reaction", I cannot help, because I don't do any such tricks! I think that the greatest number of sleights/moves I have ever used in a trick was probably five, four of which were false shuffles/placements during shuffles.

In terms of easy tricks that get big reactions, the Paper Balls trick has got me some good responses.

Nice trick! I've not seen that before Apparently known previously as chinka chink?