theory11 — Magic Tricks & the World's Finest Playing Cards

Quick Question? :)

YRAMagicMan said:
All of this talk about Royal Road being to advanced for a beginner is crazy, I started with Royal Road!
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No one has said that Royal Road was too advanced. On the contrary, it is one of the best beginner books out there. The point being made was "Expert at the Card Table" was too advanced for the beginner.

Mark Wilson's Course in Magic and Royal Road to Card Magic should be on everyone's shelf.
 
For EVERYTHING - Start with Mark Wilson's Complete Course.

For CARDS - Start with Royal Road to Card Magic or Card College Volume 1 and Scarne on Card Tricks or Card College Light, Lighter or Lightest.

Then move on to Hugard's Encyclopedia of Card Tricks and/or Expert Card Technique or the later volumes of Card College. If you want something fun, get Mentzer's Counts, Cuts, Moves and Subtlety (much of this is covered in the later volumes of Card College).

Then check out the Card Magic of LePaul, Card Control by Buckley and/or Erdnase or more volumes of Card College.

I respectfully disagree with Robert regarding Card College being more advanced than Royal Road. The first two volumes cover much of the same material that is covered in Royal Road. The subsequent volumes are significantly more advanced. I like Giobbi's teaching better than Royal Road, but that is just my preference.

For COINS - Bobo's Modern Coin Magic.
 
RealityOne said:
For EVERYTHING - Start with Mark Wilson's Complete Course.

For CARDS - Start with Royal Road to Card Magic or Card College Volume 1 and Scarne on Card Tricks or Card College Light, Lighter or Lightest.

Then move on to Hugard's Encyclopedia of Card Tricks and/or Expert Card Technique or the later volumes of Card College. If you want something fun, get Mentzer's Counts, Cuts, Moves and Subtlety (much of this is covered in the later volumes of Card College).

Then check out the Card Magic of LePaul, Card Control by Buckley and/or Erdnase or more volumes of Card College.

I respectfully disagree with Robert regarding Card College being more advanced than Royal Road. The first two volumes cover much of the same material that is covered in Royal Road. The subsequent volumes are significantly more advanced. I like Giobbi's teaching better than Royal Road, but that is just my preference.

For COINS - Bobo's Modern Coin Magic.
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What David said here is pretty much right on the money. Mark Wilson's Complete Course is perfect for starting out and wanting a wide array of knowledge.

However, if you start out with cards and want to do a bit of everything later on, and if you are still interested enough to invest in this set, The Tarbell Course in Magic is one of the most highly recommended sets of books any magician can have (8 books). You don't have to get the whole set immediately, just start out with 1. But man, it has some GREAT material in there.

There is a book that contains the original Tarbell Lessons that I saw on Vanishing Inc's website, that is 900 pages, contains a TON of amazing material, and is only about $60-$70. For that much material, in that many pages, it's definitely worth it.
 
alex2011 said:
I'm not recommending that he/she does not get books. I have Card College volume 1 and I agree it's a good book.

I'm also not saying that he/she needs an Ambitious Card DVD. All I'm saying is, Crash Course 2 has a lot of good material and if you're creative, you can create your own effects by using those principles.
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I don't think they'll be creating right now since they're just now starting out.
 
CaseyRudd said:
There is a "Best Of Tarbell" book that I saw on Vanishing Inc's website, that is 900 pages, contains a TON of amazing material, and is only about $60-$70. For that much material, in that many pages, it's definitely worth it.
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That book contains the original 1920 lessons which were sent to magicians as a monthly mail order course. You also can get the original lessons from Lybrary.com as .pdf files. The full set of 8 books has been revised, reorganized and added to, so the material is even more extensive than the original lessons. Tarbell is an indispensable resource for all types of magic.
 
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Expert at the Card Table is available for $10.00 on Amazon.

Advice: Don't wear yourself out practicing. Spend time and keep going while it's fun. If it stops being fun, put cards/coins down for a while.

Also, stop practicing when you see a noticeable improvement. This is advice from Aaron Fisher.
 
Wow! Thanks everybody for all this great advice, I already love it here!! I will definitley be sure to check out everything I can. As well as coin vs card- When doing cards get a little tiring, i switch to coin and when coin gets tiring, i switch to cards, and so on :)

But will definitley look up everything you guys showed me. Thank you so much for being so welcoming! :)

Oh and PS...I am a girl :) Probably one of the few on here?
 
Oh and also- I was thinking of a buying a few tricks, maybe from penguinmagic? Or should I become a bit more experienced before getting into that?

I just realized I use smileys way too much.... :)
 
No, that wasn't me...to be honest, I got into this after watching "The Prestige", haha. But there is something special about this...It's unique, it's fun, and I am quite a bit obsessive about this, haha.
 
BlackQueen said:
No, that wasn't me...to be honest, I got into this after watching "The Prestige", haha. But there is something special about this...It's unique, it's fun, and I am quite a bit obsessive about this, haha.
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We're glad to have you on board! You'll definitely find this art form very exciting, fun, and definitely a challenge. But hey, that's why we practice! :)
 
BlackQueen said:
No, that wasn't me...to be honest, I got into this after watching "The Prestige", haha. But there is something special about this...It's unique, it's fun, and I am quite a bit obsessive about this, haha.
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SCHWEET. It's nice to see new magicians come into this art. Hopefully you'll love it and have as much fun with it as we do and you'll stick with it. :)
 
You can get the original Tarbell lessons for free at the Learned Pig Project.
 
My advice if it was not said already would be to not over load on new stuff. You end up wasting money and time. Find a few tricks you really like and perform them for everyone all the time... That will make you good at them and go from there.

But I am not saying to experiment but do not over load at the magic shop. Also my personal advice is do not over think things... It will just slow you down just learn until you feel comfortable and natural be sure to talk when performing have patter of some kind and just perform.
 
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