Who are you?

I know some times its every hard for us to look in the mirror and be honest with ourselves. It’s not something we as human being like to do. Why would anyone want to do anything that’s hard right? I mean that’s why I decided to stop doing card magic, because for the life of me I can’t figure out how to do a pressure fan. (Ok ok that might be a slight exaggeration, but honestly I cannot do a pressure fan and it kills me.) But sometimes being honest with your self can be so rewarding and well as revealing.

What does all this mean? What should we honest about?

Here is something you can try. In a clear sentence answer these few questions. You shouldn’t have to think about it. It should just come out, and if it doesn’t you might want to go back and think about it.

1. As a performer, who am I?
2. What do I want people to think about when they leave my performance?
3. Does every effect I do make sense together? Is it just a greatest hit package of all my favorite tricks?
4. Is there an actual theme to my show?

Remember to be honest when answering these questions.

And I know what you are thinking. What if I don’t have an actual show? What if I work bars, restaurants, or just close up for friends? Well even if you are just a hobbyist this still applies to you. People will only follow you if they think you know where you are going. You need a clear path and direction. Once you have that it will come across, even if it’s just one trick that you are going to perform for once person.

What do you think about when you are wanting to add something to your show or if you are just wanting to learn something new to perform for your friends and family?

Brandon

What can make your magic stronger?

Here is a question for you to answer and think about. I say you need to think about because as magicians there seems to be the great magicians who think about this next question and then there are the other magicians who do not. One side is great and well the other……….

What is one of the most important things you can learn, that will make your magic better, stronger, and more memorable? It can be, and I would say it is more important than sleights.

I think the answer would be body language.

Body language leads to so many things that make magic better. I’ll give you a few examples of different things you can do and why it works.

A wink!

Why is a wink so important? Well I think a wink can disarm people. Its the universal sign that you give to some one to let them know that you are in on this together. What does that mean? Well I think when people think they are along for the ride, they seem to relax a little and enjoy themselves more. Now instead of being spectators they are participants. Thats a huge difference friends.

A smile!

This should be self explanatory, but a smile can do wonders for how your spectators perceive you! Once they are on your side, you can do just about anything. Trust me on this!

Eye contact!

This can accomplish all the above, but its also a great for misdirection.

I’m pretty for sure if you use all three examples at the same time, laymens heads will explode. But I take no responsibility of any explosions or magic awesomeness!

What are other forms of body language that can make your magic stronger? Here is a hint, if you are holding a deck of cards in your hand and you want the people watching you to relax. What do you do???

Brandon

Magic

Every thing that is about to be said is only my opinion and I could be wrong. All though that’s never happened before. (ok that may not be completely true, but its my lie so let me tell it how I want!

First things first. I was thinking the other day about some of my favorite movies. And how so many of them are so far fetched its all most funny. But when I watch them, I always get caught up in the story I never care about how it would be impossible for Michael J. Fox to travel back in time with a flux capacitator…… Never mind that for now.

But the point is we are always trying to find a completely plausible reason for what ever we do in magic. Why dont we just tell great stories and entertain people. Instead of bashing them over the head with things that might actually sound true, but are completely boring for most people.

All I’m saying is people like to disconnect from reality when ever they get a chance. Why not give them a great story or some crazy reason the card keeps coming to the top. What if the card had a mind of its own and wont let you go to the next trick and it keeps popping up every where. Or maybe you had a dream about a card they were going to choose and then no matter how hard you tried to get them to choose another card, the dreamt of card keeps coming back to the top to be chosen.

What do you think?

Why cant we present our magic like little movies, some are like bio’s and stick to the truth, some are like comedies and keep people rolling with laughter, some are like great action flicks that just keep the explosions going off every two seconds, but some are like fantasy novels that ask people to be children again and to use their imagination and get away from real life for a few moments.

Magic and you

The past few months I came to a couple of realizations and here is a couple!
I have more magic DVD’s and books than I care to admit to. I’ve watched too many YouTube videos searching for that next great routine that I was going to practice only to never actually perform for anyone other than the guy who watches from the mirror completely ignoring any flashes of any kind (I’ll talk about that more later). I would check forums for reviews on new effects and old. I would want to practice something but never actually get around to it. FaceBook, magic forums, or some other internet related time consumer would suck up, what little practice time I have! Worst of all I became lazy, I thought the routines I knew and the techniques I performed were great and didn’t need a lot of readjusting.
I don’t know what happened or where it began but I started seeing little things about the way I handle cards and the routines I perform. I seeing flashes and moments that I’m sure other people saw but were to nice to point out.
I decided that from then on I would be honest with myself, and I would only buy new magic that increased my technique! No more tricks. I would only learn things that polished my technique and my performance style. I became a student of Aaron Fishers, not to learn Search and Destroy, The Graduate, or any of his other wonderful routines. I wanted honest feedback and I wanted to learn how to make myself a better magician.
I started looking at the magic around me and what I wanted to accomplish! Was I really going to perform this effect or that effect, did I really need another spongeball routine? Did I need the first one at all? (I do and you do to trust me) Some techniques I needed to upgrade, for instance I took out the double undercut and replaced it with the classic pass. Harder technique to be sure, but the payoff is better and image is way better. What is the difference? Well the pass when done correctly has the appearance of being invisible, while the double undercut adds two cuts to the deck as a control. Does it take longer to the pass? Absolutely! But what is the image you prefer? Putting the card back in the middle and in the blink of an eye its back on top, or losing it in the middle only to be lost even more buy cutting the deck twice? You can see the redundancy. While my control of a card got harder, my double lift got easier.
Does this mean the pass will work for everyone? That the way I practice will work for everyone? Or even the way I go about selecting my material? The answer is no!
The one thing I have learned over the last several months is that the journey we have as magicians are completely different from one another. We learn different, we like different magicians, we like different styles of magic, and most of all we have different goals and things we want to accomplish. That’s the fun part, it’s all about the journey.
So my question to you is this. What is your journey, what do you want to accomplish, and what can you do better as a magician. Be specific and most of all be honest! It only help you and at worst it will make you a better magician knowing your weaknesses and strengths. What say you?

Brandon

Thinking about magic

Dai Vernon

Ed Marlo

Jeff McBride

Eugene Burger

Lee Asher

Helder Guimaraes

Wayne Houchin

Bro John Hamman

Derren Brown

Darwin Ortiz

 

These are just a few names, and I left out plenty of others. But when you read that list what do you think? Sure you will probably think to yourself that is a list of very talented magicians, some of the very best in fact.

But why do you think that? Do you think that they were born with more talent than you or I? That Marlo came out of the womb dealing seconds, or that McBride was doing back palms at recess in kindergarten (Ok the Marlo part might actually be true, it hasn’t been confirmed……yet)?

Let me tell you what I see. I see great thinkers, people who think magic is more than just doing a trick for someone. They thought about their magic. Why does this work, why doesn’t that, what do they see here and do they remember there. It’s that way of thinking when you think about laymen that put you over the top. Don’t get me wrong, you can a great ACR and you might get great reactions. But do you really know why it works? Do you know the psychology behind it? If you hear a magician talk about “leading them down the garden path” do you understand what that means? What do you think about your magic, is it something you actually care to know about?

For some magicians it doesn’t matter, and there are some very successful magicians who just don’t care. And that’s fine also, but I can assure you that those are the magicians who are not creating, who are not putting their personal stamps on the effects that they perform. I do not care to be one of those magicians!

What kind of magician do you want to be? And don’t think that you can’t be a great thinker and a great performer. Some of the people on the list above are wonderful at both.

So how does analyzing your routines and effects make you a better magician?

Jordan Lapping

These Old Things?

So the other day there was a thread on the forums about the Shapeshifter. This is one of my favorite moves in card magic, to me it’s all most move less, all the spectator sees is a “flick” and the card has changed.

I mentioned how I use it as a vanish, more than I use it for a color change. A few people thought it was a good idea!
This got me thinking about sleights that we use in a certain way all the time, but could also be used in ways that we wouldn’t think about.

I was talking the other night with Shawn here on forums about business card magic. And I wanted to think of a routine for him that used a sleight in way that it’s not normally used!

So I made one using the Rub a Dub vanish as switch and not as a vanish. While I’m sure this is probably not a new idea. I just haven’t ever heard of using it this way. And trust me when I say it’s a very nice application of this move.

So while we cannot talk about methods, we can talk about different uses for different sleights.
So without any exposure, tell me what you think, is there a sleight that you use in an uncommon manner? What can you think of?

Be creative people!

And again, do not even mention a method

We have had some of the better discussions over the last few days in different threads, let’s keep it going!
Thanks
Brandon

Hey

First things first, if for some reason you didn’t get to be a part of the EMC then I’m truly sorry for you. You missed out on a great opportunity to better yourself as a magician for sure!

I can’t begin to tell you the amount of things that I learned, and I missed probably 70% of it, I’m currently waiting on them to upload the parts that I missed.

But beyond the effects and the talks of business in magic, the thing that I got the most from was the talks on presentation and the psychology in magic.

Not the presentation of a single effect, but the presentation of my magic in general! It has left me with a lot to think about. Especially Eric Meads lecture those of us who go to see will all agree that it was eye opening!

I will not go into the detail of his lecture, but I want to ask you a question and please answer because there is all most no right or wrong answers and you will see why in just a moment!

Question: What do you thing laymen see as magic? Not you, or someone you know who watches and loves magic a lot.
If you took a stranger off the street and showed them different styles of magic and different performers, what do you think they would say?

Let me give you an example. If you showed them a performance of Bill Malone’s would they see strong magic, or a guy who is really funny and is very skillful with a deck of cards?

On the other hand if you showed them a performance of Eugene Burgers, would they see a guy who performs a minimalist brand of magic, all most move less and say to themselves “that was real magic”?

What do you guys think? What is magic to laymen? And how much does that mean to you?
Please do not be afraid to voice your opinion

Thanks again
Brandon

Time Machine

So last night I had a employee of mine come up to me and bow at my feet, he said to me. Please wizard show me your spell book, I must learn your magic!

Ok so maybe it didn’t happen exactly like that ( Hey its my lie, let me tell it how I want!)

But honestly he came to me and just asked what it took to learn magic, and where should he start. So we sat down and talked, I asked him what kind of magic he liked. I then told him what books he should consider looking at.

I told him what moves he should start to practice and which moves he might want to wait on.

He even asked what brand of cards he should use.

It was about this time, that I started to be envious of him. Because I didn’t have that. I didn’t have any help at first! I don’t even want to think about the time that I wasted practicing the wrong thing and learning from the wrong sources.

So this is the question, if you could go back into time and talk to your self. What would you tell your self? What advice would you give? Would you tell your self to stop worrying about whether Tally Ho’s were actually better than Bikes, because it ended up being a myth ha ha ?

Would you tell your self not to waste time learning that production that almost got your eyebrows singed off by the flash paper? Not that it happened, Im just saying ummm yea thats it!

What would it be?

Brandon



Silhouettes

I know your probably thinking what does that title mean and what does it have to do with magic? I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately, and I’ll tell you what I mean.
We all know what a silhouette is, and just in case you don’t know, its like a shadow of something you are looking at, actually Dai Vernon made a decent living cutting them out of cloth to make them look like people, anyways on to my point.

About 6 years ago I got to see a professional magic perform live for the first time, and at first I was blown away it was the greatest thing I’ve ever seen in person, but after awhile I slowly forgot things about the performance, and now to be honest I couldn’t even tell you what the guy looked like. Now jump forward a year from that and I get to see pretty much a living legend perform, his name was Walter Blaney he’s performed and received a standing ovation on the Johnny Carson show, which was a very hard thing to do. Needless to say he knew what he was doing .I sit back now and I can remember everything not because he was famous but because of some of the little things he did, for instance he made personal contact with everyone he came up to, whether it was with a hand shake or a hand on a back, and he always and I mean always asked for your name. Please remember that someone’s name is the most personal thing to them. It’s very important for people to have their names remembered. Men have died to have their names written in history books, remember that.

My point is this, we have a chance every time we perform even if its only for one person or many to put someone in a place they don’t get to go to very often, I feel that we need to do everything in our power to make them remember us after we have moved on whether its to another performance, table, or where ever. We do not want to be Silhouette in some ones memory in just a few months or even worse a few minutes. So next time during your performance make some kind of contact get a name and try to make your spectator apart of your magic not just a spectator and I guarantee, not only will it be better for them but it will be a lot more gratifying for your self also.