Card Magic
- Thread starter ReaperJr
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Oz Pearlman's Born To Perform Card Magic.
Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gaMn6iRykl8&feature=related
Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gaMn6iRykl8&feature=related
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Hey, I was just wondering what DVD would be best for a beginner who wants to learn how to do Card Magic. I have absolutely no experience whatsoever in Card Magic, it's just a hobby I thought would be cool to pick up. Any suggestions?
Paul Wilson's Royal road to Card Magic. Its a bit expensive as a first buy but you will learn so much stuff, theres enough stuff to give you a broad knowledge of card handling enough to perform a huge array of different tricks.
The only problem with the DVD is the presentation of the tricks to the crowd somehow seems a bit awkward, but dont be disheartened, most of the effects are solid and can blow away a crowd.
I know its frowned upon but Youtube will have tutorials on most of the more common sleights. I don't know why people get uppity about people revealing double lifts or a snap change or some other age old sleight on youtube, don't let that concern you.
Also, Wayne Houchin's History of Magic (...I think?) has some real nice simple effects, theres one on there that I have been performing for over a year straight and I still love it. (the one with the burnt card if you're wondering
)But, don't get bogged down by trying to over achieve, start off small. The more simple an effect is, generally the more baffled the audience will be. And always remember its not the trick itself that creates the magic for the audience but how you perform the trick that counts. It is possible using one double lift to convince an entire room you have powers not of this earth... which feels kinda cool... Uh, follow Mismag822 (hello again, everybody!) on youtube, you can learn a lot from his videos, also Andyfieldmagic. Your own enthusiasm will lead you to the knowledge you want.
Good luck!!!
I can't comment on the Oz Pearlman one as I haven't seen it, but I know Oz is a good teacher and tends to stick with more straightforward easy handling tricks with good effects, I would have to recommend Royal road as it follows Hugard and Braues book Royal Road to card magic which I think a lot of people would recommend as a good read for beginners. I still occassionally watch the Paul Wilson DVD to jog my memory on some effects.
Just googling prices, Oz's DVD is £19, and Paul's is £59... I'd get Born to perform, see if you enjoy it and get on with it and then buy Royal road at a later date. Hope this helps!
Born To Perform is great. It goes from fundamentals to complete routines. Begginer friendly, yet very very strong effects. It will make you progress fast. And yes, Oz is a grat teacher. I would deffinately recommend it. Go get it, you won't regret.
I understand that you have never performed magic before, and I understand wanting to learn visually from a dvd. Let me tell you one thing though that makes ALL books better than a DVD made from said book. Interpretation. If you learn from DVDs then you are learning the way the magician on the DVD performs magic (which may not suit your way of handling cards). If you pick up a book and read while you are practicing then you are learning YOUR way of doing the sleights and handling cards.
Ok now on to what the next argument may be, you may be a visual learner. Book have pictures and are able to teach you just as well. You may just need to use what you have read and your imagination a bit on how to get from (figure 1) to (figure 2). That is where interpretation comes into play.
Another thing IMO that makes books better than DVDs is the fact that you can learn at your own pace without having to pause and rewind when you need to take a break to work on a sleight. With a book you just turn the book over and practice. I am sure I am not the only person that has found how stupid it is to practice a sleight that uses 2 hands and pause a DVD in the middle of the explanation, while trying to hold certain cards a certain way and stretching my pinky for the pause button or trying to turn on my xbox 360 controller (ultimately dropping all of my cards on the floor at my feet).
This is on a side note and kind of shows how cheap I am, but why would you spend $60 - $80 on a dvd set that covers the some, but not all, of the material you will get from a book that will cost you less than $10? Books have tons more knowledge in them and are way WAY cheaper than DVDs. Prime example is the Royal Road to Card Magic DVDs and book. The DVD set ($60-$80) is called R. Paul Wilson on the Royal Road to Card Magic. In the DVDs you will learn what R. Paul Wilson finds important in the book. If you own the book (less than $10), then you find what is important for you to learn. See what I am getting at here?
What I am trying to tell you is you will not get the same learning experience from a DVD that you will a book. If you look at the number of magic DVDs on the market and you look at the number of books on the market you will realize that less than 5% of magic is on DVDs and the other 95% + of magic is in books and lecture notes. The funny thing is that from that 5% of magic that is on DVDs probably 80-90% of that magic is originally from a book.
If you do take the book path I would suggest buying Royal Road to Card Magic first (only because it is under $10) and then from there move on to the Card College series.
Just give it some thought.
Ok now on to what the next argument may be, you may be a visual learner. Book have pictures and are able to teach you just as well. You may just need to use what you have read and your imagination a bit on how to get from (figure 1) to (figure 2). That is where interpretation comes into play.
Another thing IMO that makes books better than DVDs is the fact that you can learn at your own pace without having to pause and rewind when you need to take a break to work on a sleight. With a book you just turn the book over and practice. I am sure I am not the only person that has found how stupid it is to practice a sleight that uses 2 hands and pause a DVD in the middle of the explanation, while trying to hold certain cards a certain way and stretching my pinky for the pause button or trying to turn on my xbox 360 controller (ultimately dropping all of my cards on the floor at my feet).
This is on a side note and kind of shows how cheap I am, but why would you spend $60 - $80 on a dvd set that covers the some, but not all, of the material you will get from a book that will cost you less than $10? Books have tons more knowledge in them and are way WAY cheaper than DVDs. Prime example is the Royal Road to Card Magic DVDs and book. The DVD set ($60-$80) is called R. Paul Wilson on the Royal Road to Card Magic. In the DVDs you will learn what R. Paul Wilson finds important in the book. If you own the book (less than $10), then you find what is important for you to learn. See what I am getting at here?
What I am trying to tell you is you will not get the same learning experience from a DVD that you will a book. If you look at the number of magic DVDs on the market and you look at the number of books on the market you will realize that less than 5% of magic is on DVDs and the other 95% + of magic is in books and lecture notes. The funny thing is that from that 5% of magic that is on DVDs probably 80-90% of that magic is originally from a book.
If you do take the book path I would suggest buying Royal Road to Card Magic first (only because it is under $10) and then from there move on to the Card College series.
Just give it some thought.
If you really want a DVD, I´ve not seen something better than the Card College 1 + 2 DVDs. They´re the best instruction DVDs for beginners (and intermediates) with such an amount of content I´ve ever encountered. And I own the RRTCM 5 DVD set by R.P. Wilson, too.
Both are great, but Giobbis teaching is second to none. He not only has keen eye a for the detail of the moves he describes, he also constantly talks about magic theory (misdirection, in-transit actions etc.).
For example, if you like Aaron Fishers DL , Giobbi´s teaching is similar. He also emphasizes that the pure mechanics alone are not enough (and not even the most important part) to be successfull and shows how to excecute the moves in the context of a performance and why you should do it that way.
The set is not cheap, but is worth it (to perfect all the stuff in there will keep you busy for a year or two) even if you already own the books.
Both are great, but Giobbis teaching is second to none. He not only has keen eye a for the detail of the moves he describes, he also constantly talks about magic theory (misdirection, in-transit actions etc.).
For example, if you like Aaron Fishers DL , Giobbi´s teaching is similar. He also emphasizes that the pure mechanics alone are not enough (and not even the most important part) to be successfull and shows how to excecute the moves in the context of a performance and why you should do it that way.
The set is not cheap, but is worth it (to perfect all the stuff in there will keep you busy for a year or two) even if you already own the books.
Woah woah. That's getting a 'lil complicated there. Loads of names which I don't know :X
Btw, did I mention I was looking for card tricks for regular decks only? :3
Everything on this DVD is 100% gimmick free. Just normal playing cards, nothing more, nothing less.
Roberto even talks about the different playing cards, hand condition and other props. As I said, it´s a complete and in-depth study for the serious card apprentice and a fantastic companion to the books.
Roberto even talks about the different playing cards, hand condition and other props. As I said, it´s a complete and in-depth study for the serious card apprentice and a fantastic companion to the books.
Generally you´re right but if you are an absolute beginner I think it´s better to pick up a (good) DVD.
Interpretiation is just effective if you already know (at least to an extent) how it may look right when performed. I assume that an absolute beginner has no idea about that. The best books in the world will not help and he´ll very likely do it the wrong way. And learning it the wrong way will lead to bad habits. It´s hard to get rid of these later on.
That´s excactly what happens to me in the beginning. I started with RRTCM. The book. I had no idea how some of the moves should look like when performed (for example the classic pass) and did them wrong.
R.Paul Wilsons DVD was enlightening to me as I could see what I´ve done wrong.
The same goes for the Card College books. Although the descriptions are crystal clear and at no point difficult to understand, it´s another matter to see Roberto assembling the magic theory he talks about in his books in performance situations..
Seeing someone performing magic gives you confidence and motivation.
It also helps to know about pace and timing, something a book cannot teach. For more experienced beginners (having a basic foundation of card magic), intermediates, advanced magicians and further indepth studies, I agree that books are (maybe) the better medium to learn from. I think it´s best to have both.
Hardcore card magic book author Richard Kaufmann says that there´re sleights that are better learned from a visual medium.
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I agree, BUT I do not feel that a true beginner should ever spend $80 or more on a DVD set when they can get the same information from royal road for $10 or $25 for card college. I personally, being a serious magician, would be leery of spending $80 or more on a DVD set when I can buy a book that covers the same information for a fraction of the cost. Honestly, I do not believe anyone in their first year of magic should spend more than $50 - $60 within that entire first year. Granted, I am looking at things in a book buying way, which would give you a brick of Bicycle playing cards and the first 2 volumes of Card College or Royal Road and Expert Card Technique. As a matter of fact, if you went the Royal Road/Expert Card Technique way with a brick of cards you would have your first year worth of magic for under $25. Also, if you own Expert Card Technique, believe me you have more than a year worth of magic to learn.
Believe me I do understand needing the actual video to learn from. Sometimes I have had problems learning a routine from a book because I can't picture what the actual performance is supposed to look like, but when I do I look online for a performance video of the routine and I watch the video and learn from the book at the same time. I mention this because there are other ways of learning from video without actually learning from a DVD.
Yeah dude, welcome to magic! Sick times.
Get the Royal Road book. So much good stuff. Try to get The Magic Book by Harry Lorayne too, that was my first book and it's got loads of good stuff. These are both fairly modestly priced books. If you like what you're seeing, you'll want to practice that stuff a while. Then maybe start thinking about expanding your library. Books and DVD's. But mostly books
Hope you stick at it dude!
Lafferty
Get the Royal Road book. So much good stuff. Try to get The Magic Book by Harry Lorayne too, that was my first book and it's got loads of good stuff. These are both fairly modestly priced books. If you like what you're seeing, you'll want to practice that stuff a while. Then maybe start thinking about expanding your library. Books and DVD's. But mostly books
Hope you stick at it dude!
Lafferty
I wouldn´t even think of getting ECT before you´ve at least 1 1/2 - 2 years of experience in card magic. Most stuff in there is really, really tough. Lee Asher once said if you can do and perform all the stuff in ECT you would be the greatest card man in the world.
If I have to start all over again I would first read Card College 1 + 2 and watch the companion DVDs. That´s it.
After that I would look into RRTCM as some of the tricks in there are really good and classic plots.
In my opinion it´s counter-productive to start with RRTCM before Card College. I know many would disagree, but it`s my personal experience, as someone who started with RRTCM and then Card College.
If I have to start all over again I would first read Card College 1 + 2 and watch the companion DVDs. That´s it.
After that I would look into RRTCM as some of the tricks in there are really good and classic plots.
In my opinion it´s counter-productive to start with RRTCM before Card College. I know many would disagree, but it`s my personal experience, as someone who started with RRTCM and then Card College.
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I started with Hugard & Braues Encyclodedia of Card magic and Paul Zenon's Street magic and struggled endlessly with learning sleights as I didn't have any idea how a jog should occur in the act of a shuffle or something like the pass went straight over my head. No matter what a sleight may be, it requires some form of misdirection which is very hard to convey through a book. Through personal experience, I started with these 2 books and struggled. I got RRTCM DVD and started learning loads, all the information I had a vague idea about now had a shape to it. I got my friend into card magic and let him borrow RRTCM and he learnt a lot quicker than I did initially. But, now after doing magic for almost three years I find another friend who I am teaching one 2 one is learning even faster than before. So, for starting off... Books - Difficult, DVDs - Medium, A real life person - Easy. Once you have the hang of it, I would reccomend getting your book library on the go as it will all make a lot more sense with some addittional knowledge, and as said in this thread already, 95% of all magic info, theory etc is in books. But, if someone can show you how to do something its always ten times easier, even if that person is via a TV screen. But... not any one person will have all the knowledge you require.