Say something interesting to transform your magic
13 August,2024
I'm trying to write more positive blog posts from here on out. I realized that some of the things I've said in the past have been quite critical towards the state of magic.
I'm quite harsh on myself... I should try and not extend that outside my own self.
This post will start out as a bit of a rant, but I promise, it will have a happy ending.
That out of the way.
When you are performing magic, you need to instruct the participants on what to do. Many times you need them to do a lot of specific things.
You say, "Cut some cards and turn them face up. Then cut them again, but this time cut more cards. And then turn those over. Then spread the deck and look for the first face down card. By any chance, is that card the Two of Hearts?" or "Write it on the piece of paper I gave you, on top of the line that you can see on the paper. Then fold it to quarters. Give that to me. Let's rip this up. Oh, are you thinking of the word 'dog'? Oh, by the way, can I get the pen back."
This is the nature of magic. We can't just vanish into thin air nor actually read minds.
This usually leads to 90% of what magicians / mentalist say during an effect to be just that, instructions on different procedures that have to happen. This is not just the case with amateurs, all the top professionals have to do the same thing.
But now we come to the intresting part. What you say, in addition to those instructions will determine your identity as a magician.
If you don't say anything. Then you're just tricks.
Writing scripts is hard. Especially, for us amateurs who constantly need to replenish their bank of new tricks, it can be a losing battle.
What if I told you that with few sentence's worth of script you can transform your magic. But more importantly you yourself, your identity as a performer.
With few sentences, you can introduce the effect, its theme, set the right mood, tell something about yourself. Et cetera, et cetera. Or it can be something that isn't even related to the trick itself.
Script something small to say before the effect, and then it's okay to just give out instructions for the rest of it.
With your Ambitious card routine you could say: "I'm a huge fan of superhero movies. It's crazy what they can do nowadays with CGI. But have you ever seen it in real life?"
Something simple like that is enough, or it can be a bit more complex:
You can use this with your metal bending: "When I was a child I heard about this guy, Uri Geller, they said he could bend spoons with his mind. He made whole generations around the world try it at home, that's how big his impact was. Later I found out that it was all a lie. I have learned his secret, would you like to see me pretend to bend a spoon with my mind?"
Some other examples, I came up in 20 minutes:
"There are people who always rely on facts and statistics, they only use the rational part of their brain. I'm more interested in the part of the brain where intuition and imagination lives in. Would you like to try something? A test of intuition."
"This is my favorite trick in all of card magic. Would you like to see it?"
"Did you know that the deck of cards can be shuffled in more many different ways than there are atoms in the entire Milky Way galaxy."
"What you're about to witness cannot be explained by our current understanding of the laws of physics. How's that for a dramatic intro?"
"There is sleight of hand, there are illusions, there's smoke and mirrors – and then there is this."
"This trick has been performed for more than 4500 years. That's before the iPhone came out, for those who have hard time with math. Anyhow... Generations upon generations, from Ancient Egypt all the way to his day, have witnessed the magic and shared the wonder of these three cups and these three balls."
"During my teens I became obsessed with card cheating. Have you seen Rounders, the film with Matt Damon, Edward Norton, and John Malkovich? That was my favorite movie growing up. Would you like to see how a card cheat could empty the pockets of unsuspecting victims in those kind of shady illegal cigar smoke filled gambling dens that you can see in movies?"
"Did you know that the ridges on the edges of coins were invented to prevent people from shaving of precious metals from coins in the old days. Nowadays coins are made out of alloys that are worth less than the coin itself. I have a set of actual silver half dollar coins which are from the last century. With some people collecting coins, and those coins being quite rare, they're actually worth way more than their weight in silver. Would you like to see them? Oh, and by the way, you can also do quite magical things with them too."
"Some coincidences are too unlikely that they could be explained with any reason. Let me show you something."
As you can see, it can be anything. Something personal, or it can be something very generic. Just make it interesting. Sometimes a single sentence is enough. And suddenly, poof, you have become a much more interesting performer.
Instead of starting with, do this. Say something. Paint a picture of some sort.
If you get inspired, you can add a sentence or two to close out your effect, or bridge the gap to the next one.
- Max Arcanie