New to card magic – where do I start?

Many people think that performing card magic requires strong sleight of hand and polished technique. While we would encourage you to practise and develop these areas, and will suggest some helpful resources below, there is more to performing magic than excellent sleight of hand. Magic is a performance art – and 90% of the impact of your performance will be affected by the way you perform, not how good your sleight of hand is.

That’s why we recommend starting off by learning some ‘self-working magic‘ to get you started. This magic is easy to do which allows you to concentrate on your performance and building confidence in front of people.

Fortunately there have been many great new magic DVD releases in this area recently:  John Bannon’s Move Zero series is superb, as is the Ultimate Self-Working Card Tricks series.

If you prefer learning from magic books (and there is much to be said for this) then we would highly recommend Roberto Giobbi’s Card College Light/er/est series.  You might also look at Karl Fulves’ superb book – Self Working Card Tricks – I still perform two of the effects from here with a bit of dressing!

At some point, however, you need to read up on the basics of card magic.  The absolute classic beginners book is called the Royal Road to Card Magic.  However, it’s style is a little dated now.  R Paul Wilson has done an excellent job of turning it into a 5-DVD teaching set if you prefer.

If you like books and have a little more money to spend, Roberto Giobbi’s Card College Series is a modern classic. They five volumes are much better illustrated than the Royal Road and very clearly explained, and contain a good number of tricks with each technique that you learn. Why not buy a volume and save up for the next one while you are mastering the content!

If you do prefer to learn by watching a DVD, Born to Perform is an excellent introduction to card magic. A good number of basic sleights are taught, and several top quality effects which will amaze your audience whilst being relatively straightforward to perform. Highly recommended for the newcomer to magic.

What about cards?

It should go without saying, but you will need a decent deck of cards to perform and practise with.  Playing cards come in many designs and qualities.  Bicycle Cards are the brand most frequently used by magicians – hence the name of this site.  And anything which is branded Bicycle will be of a good standard for magic use.   Poker Size is most commonly uses by magicians, but if you are younger or have small hands you may want to use Bridge Size, but we would encourage you to progress to the Poker Size as soon as possible. If you’re interested in the latest bicycle cards and designs, we review many of them on this site.

In addition to ‘regular’ decks of cards, you can also get special magic cards which are gimmicked to make your life easier. The first such deck that I and many magicians receive is called a Svengali deck – and it allows you to perform many impressive looking effects without any real sleight of hand. It is very easy to use and so allows you to concentrate on the presentation.

A marked deck of cards can also be useful – and this will enable you to tell the value of a card without looking at its face. There are many different kinds of marked cards available, but the Ultimate Marked Deck has the advantage that it matches your regular Bicycle deck and comes highly recommended.

And finally

As we mentioned early on, 90% of the effectiveness of a magic trick is to do with your presentation and performance skills. So if you are serious about becoming a better magician you may like to invest in a book about presentation and showmanship.  Magic and Showmanship is the classic treatment of this subject, though there are more modern volumes available. This would be a good starting point.

We hope this is enough to give you a good start in card magic. If you have other questions, or recommendations, then do chip in below or via our Facebook page – we always love to hear from our readers.

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51 Fat Chances is an intriguing little effect with the premise of a bet. The spectator is given ’51 chances’ to find a particular card in the deck. After a very fair set of cuts and deals the final card is, of course, the chosen one. It’s a clever way of using the Balducci Force in an unusual way since the ‘forced’ card is not actually chosen. This feels a bit more like a puzzle than a mystery, but with the right presentation could be powerful. I like the way the routining justifies the slightly odd Balducci procedure. And it can be done with a borrowed shuffled deck – with the spectator doing the all the work.

Leverage – this is a sort of ‘sucker’ prediction where you revise your prediction, apparently based on how the spectator cuts the cards, and the spectator is seen to behave completely as you predicted. This is really just a simple force and revelation, but the presentation lifts it well above this. Again – perform anywhere with any (shuffled) deck.

Tiny Contrary Killer – I love the typical Bannon weaving together of different principles and ideas here to make a really clever routine. A spectator cuts to a random card and a second spectator merely thinks of a card – with one or two surprising twists you demonstrate that you predicted both cards much earlier. I love the subtle thinking here and the magical effect is out of all proportion to the effort required. Wonderful.

Pedal to the Metal – this starts as a simple revelation of a chosen card but in the second phase after a really fair looking random procedure the spectator ‘builds’ a card which again you have earlier predicted. This uses a force I haven’t seen before (I need to complete my set of Semi-Automatic Card Tricks It think!) plus one you’ll be very familiar with on this DVD! This is a brilliant impromptu (ish – there is some set up but it is quite easy to do this on the fly) routine and the principle lends itself to all sorts of sneaky variations. Get your thinking caps on…

Matchismo – from a well-mixed deck the spectator selects three cards for you and for them. They are found to match – and then they make a number which you’ve already predicted in advance. This one doesn’t appeal to me as much as some of the others. It is an interesting effect, but the routine didn’t really do it for me. The shuffling procedure may well have other uses and is worth pondering, and as always the thinking behind it all is worth listening to. John also provides a few extra thoughts and variations.

Chronic – the spectator merely thinks of a card at a number known only to them. After various cuts and shuffles you manage to locate their card. It is a distant relative of the clock trick – though the link is more in the use of time as a theme than anything else. For me this was one of the weaker effects on the DVD but I think this was more about the presentation not grabbing me.

Bannon Triumph – this is quite an early Bannon creation so you may have come across it in other books /dvds. In effect, the spectator chooses a card, the rest of the deck is mixed up face up and face down and then instantly righting itself, leaving all the cards of the spectator’s chosen suit face up and everything else face down. Some set up required but a really lovely triumph which is easy to do and has a slightly quirky presentation.

Free Willy – this is a lovely 3 card prediction based on a well-known principle alluded to in the title! I love the presentation for this which somehow lifts a simple prediction into something much more engaging and entertaining.

Move Zero Moves

As on Volume 1, there is also a ‘trickbag’ teaching a number of useful moves. They are as follows:

Down Under Deal – this isn’t really a move, so it seems odd to have a section devoted to it. But Bannon makes a few helpful observations on the way.

Jay Ose False Cut – repeated from Volume 1 – but included in case you haven’t got it.

Probability Cull – this is a clever way of stacking your deck ‘on the fly’ almost imperceptibly. This is a really useful technique which will be of use in lots of routines including some on this DVD.

Gilbreath Second Principle – this is an ingenious principle which can be used to strengthen the appearance of many effects which use some kind of stack. Even if you don’t understand why it works it’s great to have it in your repertoire.

Key cards and crimps – some reflections on two useful weapons in your arsenal – enabling you to locate cards and sets of cards with ease. Don’t underestimate the power of these ‘basic’ techniques.

Remote Rosetta – this is a helpful technique which helps a spectator do a riffle shuffle when they can’t riffle shuffle! You can also use this to retain a small stock of cards.

Final thoughts

Interspersed throughout the tricks and moves are short interview segments with John Bannon. They are all interesting – though I particularly enjoyed the fascinating discussions of his creative process and philosophy of card tricks.

A number of these effects (like in Vol 1) have already been published in Bannon’s 2015 book Destination Zero – but for those of you who prefer to learn from a DVD this is another superb addition to the library. I will probably try to get hold of the book too. Although sometimes the second volume in a series is weaker – all the good stuff going into the first one, this manages to maintain the quality and is building into a great series – roll on volume 3…

Move Zero Volume 2 is released at the beginning of next month – you can pre-order now at the Merchant of Magic..

(Review copy kindly supplied by the good folk at BigBlindMedia)

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We can’t describe or comment on every individual effect, but we will pick out a couple of the gems and offer some general thoughts – and Part 1 of this review will focus on Celtic Cabal.  This was actually released in 2010 but we have only just had a look at it…

As regular readers will know, I have a small leaning in the direction of mentalism, and so appreciate that the first 40 odd pages (of this 181 page book) cover this area.  The largest section covers card magic (70 odd pages) and there are small close up (non-card) and stage sections and a bonus manuscript from Tom Sellers.  This is a lot of magic for your money.  Here are a few highlights of the various sections.

Mentalism

There are some interesting twists on some standard effects, some new presentations (including a neat ‘just chance’ effect with straws), some work on magic squares, and even an essay on the performance of mentalism.  I particularly enjoyed a routine with standard ESP cards partly based on the work of the ubiquitous Max Maven and a series of variations on the ‘diary trick’ – at least one of which may end up in my working set.  Peter himself contributes one of those diabolical all but self-working effects based on Bob Hummer’s CATO principle which could be a go-to impromptu effect.

Card Magic

Again a whole variety of effects including spelling tricks, ace tricks, transpositions etc. Some require reasonably advanced card handling, some are all but self-working.  A couple that caught my eye were an Alan Rorrison idea which provides a really elegant addition to an effect I already use in various forms to make a really strong routine and Steve Thompson’s incredibly subtle solution to a problem with some forms of OOTW.  I love his thinking on this. R Paul Wilson also contributes a nice and easy take on a four ace routine.

Close-Up Magic

This starts with a matrix effect that almost makes it into the card section because it’s not just the coins that are magical in this routine! There’s an interesting essay on creativity from Geraint Clarke who also includes a neat torn and restored bank note routine.  Trevor Lewis contributes a routine involving a nun (!) and a slightly risqué card trick slips in on the grounds that it is more than a card trick! There is also a two-stage story-based presentation from Dominic Lavin which seems to owe much to a Robert Neale presentation of the same effect.

Stage Magic

Pat Fallon contributes his presentation for the classic anti-gravity glasses.  There’s also an unusual routine for the Lota Bowl utilising the principle in a different way.  An updated version of the classic Fogel Bewitched, Bottled and Bewildered routine adds a mental twist and the mix is completed with a children’s routine and even the design for a magic table!

As a bonus, there’s a reprint of a Tom Sellers Manuscript – Royal Flush – detailing various false shuffles and moves and routines using them.

This is one of the most varied ebooks I have seen in a long time – literally something for every kind of performer.  Everything is clearly explained and well-illustrated where necessary.  The book is nicely laid out – and extremely easy to navigate with a properly hyperlinked table of contents.  All in all an excellent read and much that will stimulate your thinking.

We salute our Celtic Fringes!  Available from Merchant of Magic (with thanks to Peter Duffie who kindly provided the review copy) for only $22.50 (about £14 in real money – or less than 31p per item!).

[You can read part 2 here]

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British Close Up Magic Symposium

I reckon in this time of credit crunch, e-books may well be the way forward (though I will always prefer the real deal…).

Anyway, our friends at Trickshop.com have just released The British Close Up Magic Symposium
– a big e-book of over 300 pages covering 16 years of the British Close Up Magic Symposium.  Loads of great card and close up magic by all the greats.  Well worth a look at $49.95 and instand delivery!

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