Getting Started
Choose your tricks carefully and PRACTICE, PRACTICE, PRACTICE! Your success as a magician depends a lot on how natural you look when you perform. Only use tricks that you know you can get right every time. A simple trick performed confidently will look much more like real magic than a difficult one performed in a clumsy manner.
Never repeat a trick in front of the same audience. The element of surprise is all important and if you do it again they will know what is coming and be watching even closer. They will also find it far easier to work out how it's done!
When people ask you how your tricks are done, DO NOT TELL THEM! Keep your secrets to yourself and you will build yourself a reputation.
Try to BELIEVE that what you are doing really is magic! Most magicians’ tricks are really simple to do but when you watch them perform they will often look as amazed by what has happened as their audience! You should have practiced so much that you can forget about the method and concentrate on selling the effect. If you believe, then so will your audience!
Try to be yourself. Don't copy another magician's style. I tend to talk really fast and crack a lot of jokes so if I tried to perform like another entertainer it wouldn't suit my personality. Choose tricks that suit your style of performing. Are you going to be serious or funny? Will you perform silently to music or be a patter act? How will you dress? Do you want to wear casual clothes or dress up and play a character? Think about it!
Where to buy “Tricks”
You can check out my DVD and other magic effects by clicking here.
You may also want to check your local yellow pages for magic shops in your area. You may be able to visit and see the tricks performed before you buy. Try to bear in mind what we said earlier and decide if a trick will suit your style before you buy it.
The best and most inexpensive way to learn magic is to visit your local library and check out as many books on magic as you can!
How to learn a trick:
Read through the instructions a few times, paying close attention to the desired effect as well as the method.
Get together all the items you need to perform the trick and read through the instructions again, following them step by step. Make sure that you understand each move before you move on to the next. Practice the trick again and again until you are totally comfortable with the method. Think carefully and try to work out if you can adapt the trick in any way to make it better or easier to perform.
When you have practiced until everything is second nature you can start rehearsing the trick - that is, performing it as if it were in front of a real audience. This is when you will work out how you will present the trick and what you will say. With your performance suitably polished, you are finally ready to perform in front of a real audience! Good luck!
Here are a few simple effects to get you started:
- 1. There is a lot of fun in this “scientific” experiment. Glue a string to a penny and then suspend it over the hand of a girl. It will swing slowly over her hand. Now do the same thing over the hand of a boy. It will swing straight up and down over his hand. SECRET: There really isn’t any. One scientific explanation is that the movement of the coin is unconsciously controlled by muscular vibration. Don’t try to make the coin swing by moving your arm. Just think “circle” over girl and “straight line” over boy. It will really operate itself and create a great sensation.
- 2. Someone is told to think of a number on a watch dial. Mentally beginning with one number above the one he thought of, he is to start counting as the performer taps the dial on tap for each number. As soon as he mentally counts to 20, he is to say stop. At this point, the magicians pencil is on the number previously thought of! SECRET: Make seven taps at random, but on the eighth tap have your pencil on number 12. Now start tapping counter clockwise around the dial. No matter what number was taken, when the spectator counts to 20, your pencil will be on the right number.
- 3. While blindfolded, you can produce the Four Aces from the deck after it has been shuffled and placed in your coat pocket if you follow these instructions carefully: before doing the trick, hide the Four Aces in your upper right hand vest pocket. Let anyone shuffle the deck thoroughly and place it in your inside coat pocket. Someone now can place a handkerchief about your eyes as a blindfold. You then apparently reach in to your pocket and withdraw the Four Aces from the deck. SECRET: All you do is to take out the Four Aces you originally hid in your upper right hand vest pocket! The illusion I s perfect… the audience thinks the cards were taken from the deck they saw shuffled. To prevent detection, after showing the Four Aces, place them back in your coat pocket… and withdraw the deck, shuffling it a you do so, after which out can throw it out for examination.
- 4. Performer announces he can tell the name of any article in the room secretly touched by a member of the audience. He then leaves the room and upon his return, he names the articles selected. SECRET: An assistant is required who has learned a pre-arranged code as follows: assistant touches different articles in the room and asks performer, “Is this the article?” At first performance, article selected it the one mentioned at the third question. If stunt is repeated, it is the article touched at the sixth question, then the ninth question, etc. A very effective trick. The changing code prevents detection.
- 5. You can be a mathematical “genius”, at least to your friends, when you do this trick. Ask someone to think of a number with three different digits. Write on a piece of paper the answer to the problem! You now have the thought of numbers written down while your back is turned. Now ask the one doing the trick to reverse the number. If it is larger than the original number, she is to place it on top, or smaller, below. Subtract one from the other. Reverse the remainder and now add them to the previous remainder. Now show the number you originally wrote. It agrees. The answer is always 1089.
- 6. Have anyone shuffle a pack of cards. Have someone else withdraw a card and look at it. Performer takes the deck from one who shuffled it. Card is replaced in pack…miraculously the selected card seems to have reversed itself in the pack. SECRET: Everything is fair until performer takes pack back. As he does this, he secretly reverses the bottom card. When selected card is pushed back in pack, actually all the cards are face down except the bottom one which is face up, thus giving this illusion that all the cards face one way.
- 7. Place a nickel in the palm of your right hand and rub it against your left elbow. Then open your hand and the coin has vanished. SECRET: Show the nickel in the right palm and while rubbing it on your elbow, “accidentally” drop it on the floor. Pick it up with your left hand, pretend to place it in the right hand (but don’t) and then continue rubbing your elbow with your right hand. Few will ever detect the deception of not putting the coin in the right hand so, when the right hand is opened, the coin will appear to have mysteriously vanished. Now produce it with your left hand from the back of your coat collar!
- 8. Place a glass of water on a table, putting a hat over the glass and say you will drink the water without removing the hat. Then go under the table and pretend you are drinking the water. Invite a skeptic to remove hat to see if the water is gone. As soon as hat is removed, drink the water and remark you DID drink it without removing the hat.
- 9. Ask a person to select any card from a deck and have him place it on the top of the deck. Then ask him to cut the cards. You then look at all the cards and then quickly throw out the one that was selected. SECRET: Notice card at BOTTOM of the deck before starting trick. The card selected will FOLLOW this card.
- 10. You have different persons call out names famous people. You write the names on pieces of paper. The papers are placed in a hat, and a member of the audience is asked to take one. He is told to read the name on the paper and concentrate on it. You then “read his mind” and tell him the name he is thinking of. SECRET: When the audience calls out the names of famous people, you merely write the same name on all of the slips. It doesn’t make any difference which slip is selected; you know what name is on it, because they are the same.
- 11. You state to the audience you can tell what color anything is just by touching it. To prove it, you give out a box of crayons. While your back is turned, the audience is told to select one crayon and hand it to you. You then turn around to face the audience, with the crayon still held behind you, and tell what color it is. SECRET: When you are facing the audience with crayon behind you back, make a small line with the crayon on your thumbnail. Now bring this hand around in front of you and rub your forehead with your fingers as if you were puzzled. While you do this, you can look at your thumbnail to see what color was selected.
- 12. You make a rubber band jump magically from one pair of fingers to another. SECRET: Place a rubber band around your first two fingers. Now curl your fingers in and secretly put the band over the tips of all 4 of the fingers. To make the band jump, just straighten out your fingers. When you do the same thing in reverse, the band can be made to jump back.
