I have been performing card magic for a year now and I'm kinda in a rut. When I started I was just learning random card tricks and then practicing them until good enough to perform. Of course, along the way I learned the various techniques and such to make sleight of hand what it is. I don't feel very accomplished in this because I don't feel like I have a strong base to work off of, just what I randomly learned up until now. I have been looking at different books and I found Royal Road to Card Magic, which I already know is pretty huge. Even though I have been doin this for a year now, do you guys think it would be in my best interest to get this book and kinda start over, or do you have other suggestions?
Royal Road to Card Magic
- Thread starter Orin10
- Start date
Start over? if you already know how to force a card this book shows many forces.
if you have a strong false shuffle, this book shows dozens of false shuffles. just get the book. and you'll see.
I know you only need 1 good false shuffle.
1 good force,1 good control to top,1 good color change,1 good false cut.
but its nice to have options to pick and choose from.
get the book dude. even if your last name is Skinner.
I have the same problem. I started with Royal Road thou, but i didnt master every move, i practise that much so i can do the move, not to do it perfecly. Than i spend 4-5 months doing nothing, just practising some tricks and not even master them. So today i started from the beginning, i started to read Card Colege and im gonna master every move until i go to the next one, it's gonna take a year or maybe two, but when i'm done, i'll know what i worked for so hard.
So yeah, my suggestion is, start over...
So yeah, my suggestion is, start over...
Best advice you can get is from the professionals who put together this website for new magicians learning the art of magic. The best thing you can do is learn how to do a few tricks better than anyone else. Master them so you'll never forget them. Then move on to another trick and master it. Know one can master all sleights. Pick a sleight and work out every detail of it, study it, and improve upon it. It takes decades to become a professional and lots and lots of practice. Let your love of magic be your motivation when things seem difficult. Your hard work will pay off.
Its impossible for a beginner to master a few tricks, and do them better than anyone else. I think this is actually a wrong thing to do, and many will come here with the misunderstood Devant quote of ameature vs Devant. Please, go read Hugard's introduction in the book. He clearly say that the student should try out and learn everything, but in continous performing, he'll find that he like some tricks more than others, THESE tricks are the ones he'll continue performing, and thus will be good at them. Besides that, doing a trick well requires a good understanding of presentation and showsmanship, which a beginner cannot understand and dont need, simply because he don't have enough performing experience. THIS IS the thing needs to be focused on.
My suggestion?
Open Royal Road ( or Card College ), start with the overhand shuffle control, practice it until you can do it comfortably ( might take hours, might take weeks! ). Next, read the overhand shuffle tricks, and try to do them well enough, which is easy because you already do the required sleight well. Perform the ones you like ( even better, perform them all ). This way you perform, and you get the joy of performing, which will motivate you to practice and learn more tricks and sleights.
Open the glide, practice it till you can do it comfortably, then learn all the tricks in it. Try to perform them all, then move on the next, and so forth.
Learning one or two trick is simply none-sense for a beginner, not only you are killing his exctiment, but limiting his performing experience WHICH HE NEEDS MOST at this stage. And what actually makes Royal Road and Card College so good that it makes it easy for a beginner to be good at alot of tricks in a comfortable way. You become good at the tricks because you became good at the sleight needed( NOT MASTER, as this will only come with Experience, which the beginner don't have ).
Again, try to learn every trick in the book, this is how you will grasp an understanding on card magic works ( math-magic, card principles .. etc ). Simply learning 3 or 5, or even 12 is simply killing the purpose of the book.
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The David Devant quote of "ameatuer does 100 tricks, Devant does 8", is because Devant's long experience, he performed alot of tricks, but he settled on 8 that he liked and saw that they get the most reactions, he setteled on them. Devant is NOT a beginner. A beginner NEEDS TO PERFORM, and this won't happen unless he feels that he got enough tricks under his belt.
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I rarely post in forums but I read alot. I figured I had to create my first post here to thank you Medifro, your post might be simple logic for some people, but it really made me understand that I was going the wrong way about learning my magic.
I only learned a couple of tricks and actually havent touched a single deck of cards since christmas because I was bored and didn't quite like what I learned or the pace at which I could learn those tricks.
I have just ordered royal road to card magic book and dvd to start my learning the right way =)
so again, Thank you Medifro for a great post that made me go back to magic =)
I only learned a couple of tricks and actually havent touched a single deck of cards since christmas because I was bored and didn't quite like what I learned or the pace at which I could learn those tricks.
I have just ordered royal road to card magic book and dvd to start my learning the right way =)
so again, Thank you Medifro for a great post that made me go back to magic =)
Skaclown, you are one example of a beginner that's been "gunned down" under the beasts of the internet.
Learn as much as you like, learn as much as you like, and perform as much as you like. I read that a magician here knows 200 tricks, well I know 12234512 tricks, because I read/watch, see a trick, and learn it. I perform it if I like it, then if it works for me, I add it to the list.
My list now contain above 30 effects ( and increasing ) that I love performing. Anyone who tells you need 10 or so effects to earn a living in magic tell him this: How many different effects have you performed? At least he'll say 100000.
And buy material as much as you want. 99% of magicians actually have a life supply of magic, yet they read more. Of course, its a good appraoch to start with a book, read it fully, do the things you like and then go on to the next DVD/book, but at the end, it all comes to you. Its a trail and error process, and you will learn by yourself. There is no "right and wrong", there is "good and better", and its up to you, with experience, you'll learn subconciously ( spelling? haha ).
At the end, I would like to tell you this: Have fun, if you don't, not only you won't perform, but even if you perform your spectators wont feel your passion, and your performance itself will be a bad quality. Internet is full with people who don't perform, just type posts and say what they think its right to say, without any idea behind it, which makes some posts annoying to read ( like this post where you have to spend 1 week to practice a self-working trick. Why would you need one week to master a self-worker, or a trick that you already do its sleights well? even presentation comes with couple of hours if you work on that, which you don't need at this stage, AT ALL. Royal Road gives outlines only, which is PERFECT for your stage! ).
Geez .. I'm really angry because I suffered through all this, and I really don't want any other magician suffer like me. So, skaclown, do everything your way, not others way. Get opinions, but think about them rather than following them blindly.
Good luck, if you need any help, I'm a PM away.
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What books/DVDs were you learning from prior to finding RRTCM? First thing, learning sleights just to learn them is not learning the correct way. RRTCM is structured to teach you the sleights and several effects that utilize the the material learned. This is the correct methodology. Sleights are a means to an end and are worthless if not put to good use in an entertaining routine. Yes, get that book and start over as you say. RRTCM is inexpensive and it will test you to see if you are truly "cardician material" or just a "flash in the pan". If you find yourself dreaming about handling cards, (God forbidding LOL) then you are hopelessly addicted and can't be helped. Kidding aside, buy that book and take a journey down the Royal Road to Card Magic...and enjoy the ride!
Dom Kabala.
I think 'Card College' is what you need if you are already one year into magic. I just don't think you will find too many things you don't know in Royal Road, perhaps you will like one or two tricks. But 'Card College' is just a treasure - so much in depth and interesting and very well presented information. And also a ton of nice tricks. For example, you will find new methods for controlling a card, you may like some of them more than the ones you are now using and you may incorporate them in some of the tricks you already do. Or a new double lift or palming technique. Palming for example is not very well covered in RRCM and with palming you can do some really impossible transpositions
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To answer a post from before, I had never actually used a book to learn card magic. I actually started out watching a David Blaine performance and was able to figure him out without tutorials or any of those "street magic revealed" things (I hate those). So I just continuted with that and found that I really loved learning card tricks, and even more, performing them for people. That's why I feel now, that I need to start over with all of this and learn the right way. I've seen others posting about Card College and I can't seem to find a deal that I can actually afford right now. Being in college sucks on the money situation. But yeah, I've already ordered RRTCM and it's on its way.
I read an excerpt from it and discovered that I do my overhand shuffle backwards (Cards are in my right and rather than my left) to the way they teach it, and everyone else. Does that really matter?
All the instructions are written for right handers. If you normally hold a deck in a left dealer's grip the instruction will suit you. If your normal grip is in the right hand then you will have to "flip flop" the instructions. I hold the deck in the left hand and then transfer the deck to the right hand and "peel" with the left thumb into the left hand. This is the standard method of overhand shuffling. There are many "lefties" in magic . It's wierd though, I bat (baseball) lefty ( throw righthanded ), surf as a goofyfooter, box as a southpaw...but do magic as a righthander. Any others out there like that?
Dom Kabala.
I don't consider you a card magician without this book. It's where my "serious" card magic got its start, and beyond Card College, I don't hink there's anything better. Get it. It'll give you some ideas, andm maybe you'll even get some usable material from it, even though it is a little "dated".
I don't agree. The main reason to buy anything is to learn something you don't know, that includes Card College, Royal Road, and everything else. ( thats for beginners, some people buy books for more reasons .. )
There is no "must have book" in all magic ( Slydini didn't learn from books in first place ). If someone already knows the sleights involved, unless he's intrested in the tricks, why buying it? For his book collection ( nothing wrong in this by the way )?
Don't get me wrong. I'm a huge fan of Braue/Hugard stuff, but I would never say, especially to beginners, that you will never become serious unless you buy the book.
I actually know some people that do have Royal Road, but didnt bother to read it, because they know they won't learn much from it. Its just that magician at the magic shop, told them that they have to buy this book to be accepted.
I bet he doesnt know how to properly overhand shuffle the cards ( explained in Royal Road or Card College ).
I'm doing exactly this. I'm on my second week of overhand shuffle practice. I still suck.
I interpreted that quote as Devant recognising that while there are a great many things that might be called a "trick", lots of them are really the same trick.
For example, any trick which ultimately reveals four of the same card is a "four aces" trick - even if the cards aren't aces. Erdnase's "Exclusive Coterie" is a four aces trick with queens, for example. My own "four robbers named Jack" trick, learned in my youth from an already-old book, is a four aces trick with jacks. We probably all know the four-stacks version (three to the bottom, deal one to each other stack). Even though the methods differ, these three tricks are - in essence - one trick; the four aces trick.
Likewise, while there are dozens of ways to perform a triumph, it's still one trick: a triumph. That's always the way I saw Devant's meaning.
The question, I think, hinges on whether the difference is in the definition of "trick" or in the definition of "know". Devant certainly had some knowledge of several hundred things that might be called a trick. What isn't clear is whether he discounted most of them because he only really knew a small number to a level he considered adequate, or because he considered the vast majority to be simply variations of other tricks.
medo nice tips but yea royal road to card magic is a good book for controls/false cuts/shuffles and etc but learned them all and master the ones u like and pick 3-4 taht u like and can be used in ur daily routine but most of the techinque arent hard mayb few hrs practice or weeks depending on ppl