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My friends have seen all of my best tricks (and all of the rubbish ones ), and I need to get a new DVD. I have Expert Card Technique that I need to read, but I'm going to Spain for a month in the Summer Holidays so I'm leaving that until then.

So I thought, why don't I just improvise? Now, i would have thought that these tricks would have been absolutely rubbish, but some of them get amazing reactions!

What I basicallly do is think of one sleight (eg. a top palm) and use it. My little brother is usually very sharp, but I just did about 5 improvised tricks to him using the palm and he never spotted it once. I made a card appear under my leg, in a wallet thingy etc.

Now, I thought that this was pretty cool, as I was inventing patter and the effect on the spot, and to tell you the truth it is very easy.

The whole reason in this post is to show how simple sleights and methods can be used to create real 'off the cuff' tricks to great effect, and it greatly boosts your confidence (and also gets the creative juices flowing for when one wants to create an effect).

This principal of using a main sleight could also be applied to all kinds of magic to make real impromtu magic.

I would recommened anybody to try this, as you will then realise how easy it is to make up your own effects!

Sometimes my mind goes blank when someone asks to see something. I go into "jazz" mode and improvise. I think of a revelation and work towards it, like a jazz quartet knowing they have to wrap up and be back on the main theme in, say, another 16 bars.

It also gives you a way of showing the same trick twice but by a different method.

Tomo wrote:Sometimes my mind goes blank when someone asks to see something.

Same here - I spend time at home learning new and improved routines and then I go out to show someone something and I improvise it totally.

Kati

The best way to get creating magic is to be bold when performing and experiment a little—try and find what suits you best and what gets a good response.

It's all well and good sitting at home and inventing a new shuffle or a way to make a sponge banana appear out of your ear, and it may seem really impressive at the time. But your audience are you best judge.

Try and focus on the things you do which gets the best reactions, and then refine those little effects.

Possibly the strongest reactions are from the simplest effects which are simply beyond belief—when writing 'Get Fluxed' I spent a long time experimenting with seeing if I could get a reaction, and the effect which gets the BEST reaction, which in my mind is the simplest, is being able to make a key vanish out of someone's open palm.

There's lots of horrible obstacless faced by an unseasoned creative magician, and most of them are actually issues more to do with confidence...

1. Don't be afraid of an effects simplicity: just because YOU know how it is done and it seems self-working and cheap, does'nt mean it isn't strong.

2. Don't be put off if you come up with something which people don't react to. Either re-develop it or scrap it for a while, and move on. Quite often I find that an idea from a while ago that didn't work can be re-visited with fresh eyes.

3. Be prepared for criticism—whether good or bad. Good positive criticism is worth its weight in gold.

4. Discussing your ideas with other magi can help a lot. Sometimes a much better, more refined effect is staring you in the face... you just need encouragement.

Think outside the box! Nobody expects you to be the next Angel, Blaine or Derren. They want to see the next YOU... add something unique, don't try and emulate.

As discussed at the start of this thread, the more you know, the easier it is to create. Learn the sleights, moves, subtelties, angles... they are all smaller parts of many greater wholes. The more knowledge of fundamentals you have, the easier it is to improvise and ad-lib.

By simply keeping a few items about your person, you can perform lots of unique magic in an impromtu situation.

In the Lewis Ganson book "Dai Vernon´s More inner secrets of card magic", chapter eleven (if my memory is right) "the trick that cannot be explained" is really a master piece. One of the most incredible effect was create only improvising. Yes, i know, is Dai Vernon, but the ideas he comment for create this total improntu effect was pure dinamite. If you have the book, you must read that chapter, is amazing, a lot of ideas, tips, pshychological details to create magic... that´s right, magic. Ace of Kev if you going to Spain, you must go to the S.E.I (Spanish society of ilusionism) i know a lot of magicians of Spain (Im chilean by the way) and it could be a very good experience to understand and see how the magic as evolved in one of the most important close up schools in the world (a lot of proffesional magicians say that)... the spanish magicians has a very interesting way to see the magic, a lot of magical theory born in Spain.
Bye guys.
If someone has troubles to understand me, sorry guys, i´m only learning english...

Where abouts is the S.E.I, as I am going to visit my Gran and Grandpa and they live near Alicante