Routining

[WyattSB]

I'm more of a hobbyist than anything, however I do a fair bit of casual performance, particularly at parties. Nothing is organised, usually I'll have a deck with me, my ring, some rubber bands and whatever things I can grab from someone's house. I'm constantly plagued with requests, 'do a trick' or something similar, which I'm quite happy to oblige. However, what I do is usually just a random mix of whatever comes to mind, none of it has any structure, and this I believe is what causes me to constantly feel like I don't know enough tricks or effects to satisfy my spectators. I think what I need is some routining, a couple of sets would work wonders for me, allowing me to properly do some street stuff as well, but I have no idea where to start.

Two things I do, are essentially Paul Harris' Galaxy; and A Shuffling Lesson from True Astonishments. Both are big and hit hard, and everyone loves them and they are the closest thing I have to a routine, as they both take a reasonable amount of time to do. But everything else is just what I happen to think of at the time. Some routining ideas would be much appreciated.

I've been thinking of an Ambitious card routine in particular, nice and long, so if anybody knows of any particularly good ones, I would love to see them and draw some inspiration.

 

[PurpleMustache]

when your trying to make a routine, the main thing is the to figure out a logical order in which to go. try to have each trick in a certain routine linked. Daniel Garcia and Michael Ammar have amazing rubber band trick that i use for a rubber band routine. as for an acr, you could do chris mayhews the hole thing. also, if you make an acr, i would definitly recomend ending it with the card to mouth.

 

[Oli Smith]

You're definitely right, routining is the way to go but PurpleMustache is correct, routines must make sense. This is why you shouldnt focus on making routines too long, let them develop naturally instead of stuffing as many tricks as possible in to them. This is especially important for the ACR. Unless your going to sit down and do the full Daryl routine, which i dont recommend, you shouldn't make your ambitious card too long, 4/5 rises is plenty. A simple rise, a flip/flop change, card to mouth, and a pop-up move is more than enough. If your confident maybe add in a pass as well, but don't just throw in every ambitious card move you know, it wont impress your audience as much.
If you want to make the ACR longer, you can link routine together. My go to street routine is an 'excessive force' style trick, where the spectator chooses the same card 4 times in a row, and using that, 'you can see that this car is rather ambitious cant you' etc. i go straight into a 3 move ambitious card, a simple rise, card to mouth, and pop-up.

Also consider making a sandwich routine. John Bannon has a great trick, 'return to fat city' which does a very simple sandwich trick (to show the audience what one looks like) then does it again where the entire deck ends up sandwiched except the selected card.
On that not you should check out some of Bannon's DVD's especially bullet Party. Not only are the effects great, especially bullet party, but all of them are easily routinable and it actually has 4 or 5 ace tricks that form a routine.

What about a cheating routine. My favourite routine i do is one in which i 'explain' how cheating works. I do a ace production, some ace dead cutting, a spectator cuts to the aces, a piece on card control, then some card stacking finishing with John Bannons riverboat poker. If you want some inspiration check out Ricky Jay's 52 assistants show, you can find it on youtube.

When doing street magic is not vital to routine unless your doing ungimmiked card tricks. David Blaine showed that routines and patter arnt always necessary in street magic, but he only did highly visual tricks where the magic speaks for itself. so you can do one off tricks on the street if they are visual enough, like pressure or prophet. And this does apply to cards if you do a haunted deck or something like distortion by WH. Ungimmiked card tricks however, although just as impressive when linked to a routine, i find, just dont work as stand alone tricks that well. Of course there are some exceptions; SWAK is one that comes to mind.

I know ive rambled on a bit but hopefully everything ive said is usefull.

 

[WyattSB]

Absolutely, thank you.

 

[RealityOne]

Consider mentalism as well, its very easy to routine.

I have to strongly disagree with this. Yes, you can tie several mentalism effects together as "things I do with my mind", but unless you have a developed theme and character it becomes a bunch of "tricks I can do that you don't know how."

Routining is more than following one trick with another. It is developing a common theme and presentation that makes sense within the plot of the effects. It also includes all of those scripted "bits" that make magic entertaining.

 

[Steerpike]

Consider mentalism as well, its very easy to routine.

[video=youtube;umDr0mPuyQc]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=umDr0mPuyQc[/video]

 

[Oli Smith]

Steerpike - WTF!

Reality one - preaching to the choir i think. I know exactly how to routine, why would i be posting on this thread if i didnt. Im sorry, what i should have said is that the basic mentalism i do (because im not really a mentalist) is, I FIND, easy to routine. Maybe other people dont, it was an idea - a suggestion.

 

[Steerpike]

(because im not really a mentalist)

Clearly. I'm going to go ahead and say that you probably never did mentalism. You did mental magic. They're not the same thing. I'm getting very impatient with this attitude that if you can do card tricks, you can do mentalism. No you can't. Mentalism requires a high degree of showmanship and a completely different attitude than magic.

So if you're not a mentalist, why are you telling people that mentalism is easy? Do not suggest anything that you yourself would not follow up on.

 

[Oli Smith]

Clearly. I'm going to go ahead and say that you probably never did mentalism. You did mental magic. They're not the same thing. I'm getting very impatient with this attitude that if you can do card tricks, you can do mentalism. No you can't. Mentalism requires a high degree of showmanship and a completely different attitude than magic.

So if you're not a mentalist, why are you telling people that mentalism is easy? Do not suggest anything that you yourself would not follow up on.

Get out of it - your being ridiculous and downright rude! Plus you clearly have little knowledge of basic language as i never once said that mentalism is easy - in fact i believe the exact opposite. I stated that i personally find it easier to routine with mental trick or mentalism or watever word for it you want to pontificate about using, than i do with other forms of magic. I was offering some advice and a new avenue for WyattSB to explore. I DO perform some mentalism, what i meant is that i do not specialise in mental magic. Although as i dont specialise in any form of magic, i think your point is completly bogus. I perform table card magic, street magic, other forms of close up, mentalism, parlour magic and devote a significant portion of time to circus skills and fire spinning. THis clearly shows that i have not specialise in one form of performance, going by your point does this mean i cannot call myself a card magician?!?!? You have never seen me perform and know nothing about me so how dare you, how DARE you speak to me in such a way. you imply i have no showmanship, you imply i do not have the right attitude. AND you challenge me when i am simply attempting to offer some advice and help. I think you have no real knowlege of what the forum is here for.

 

[ReservoirRed]

Get out of it - your being ridiculous and downright rude! Plus you clearly have little knowledge of basic language as i never once said that mentalism is easy - in fact i believe the exact opposite. I stated that i personally find it easier to routine with mental trick or mentalism or watever word for it you want to pontificate about using, than i do with other forms of magic. I was offering some advice and a new avenue for WyattSB to explore. I DO perform some mentalism, what i meant is that i do not specialise in mental magic. Although as i dont specialise in any form of magic, i think your point is completly bogus. I perform table card magic, street magic, other forms of close up, mentalism, parlour magic and devote a significant portion of time to circus skills and fire spinning. THis clearly shows that i have not specialise in one form of performance, going by your point does this mean i cannot call myself a card magician?!?!? You have never seen me perform and know nothing about me so how dare you, how DARE you speak to me in such a way. you imply i have no showmanship, you imply i do not have the right attitude. AND you challenge me when i am simply attempting to offer some advice and help. I think you have no real knowlege of what the forum is here for.

Chill.

You did say mentalism was easy to routine. And you were wrong. Trying to give advice doesn't earn you brownie points, meaning well doesn't mean your advice is worth a damn. In the same way that 10 hours of practice is useless if you don't know how to practice.

Mentalism is a dedicated field. Your advice was essentially to be a jack of all trades. A jack of all trades is a master of none and mentalism has no place in between an ambitious card routine and a gambling demo.

 

[Steerpike]

Plus you clearly have little knowledge of basic language as i never once said that mentalism is easy - in fact i believe the exact opposite.

Did you say that mentalism was difficult? No? Then you didn't say the opposite. Do not criticize my reading comprehension if you're going to make claims like that.

I stated that i personally find it easier to routine with mental trick or mentalism or watever word for it you want to pontificate about using, than i do with other forms of magic. I was offering some advice and a new avenue for WyattSB to explore.

Offering advice is not automatically a good thing, especially when you're wrong. I am a mentalist. Are you?

I DO perform some mentalism, what i meant is that i do not specialise in mental magic.

Mentalism or mental magic, pick one.

Although as i dont specialise in any form of magic, i think your point is completly bogus.

And what do you think my point was?

THis clearly shows that i have not specialise in one form of performance, going by your point does this mean i cannot call myself a card magician?!?!?

What the hell does that have to do with what I said? And quit trying to impress me. It just irritates me.

You have never seen me perform and know nothing about me so how dare you, how DARE you speak to me in such a way.

You gave bad advice and I responded.

you imply i have no showmanship,

No I didn't.

AND you challenge me when i am simply attempting to offer some advice and help. I think you have no real knowlege of what the forum is here for.

You offered bad advice. I called you on it. Now quit flipping out on me and act like an adult. Admit to your mistake and stop giving me this righteous indignation crap.

This is my beginner's guide to mentalism. Feel free to read more of the blog if you want. You'll find a lot of good advice in there that I culled from real world experience. Until then, please stop wasting my time.

 

[Randy]

When it comes to building a routine, the thing you should think about the over premise of the "Act" in general. also, the routines should build upon each other and have one or two things in common with each. IE: If you are doing a gambling act, you are not going to do a mind reading routine (Unless you play it off as you reading "Tells".). You would instead want to do a routine/effect that deals with showing off your skill. So each routine build to the greater structure and premise of the Act and your character (If you have one.)


If you are doing this all for friends and family, then you really don't need to worry about routine and character and all that other stuff. Just worry more about having decent presentations and entertaining effects. Because it's going to be damn near impossible to convince your friends and family that you have a character or anything else.