How to do Magic Tricks

Advice and Support for Magicians

People Don’t Believe in Levitation Tricks – Here’s How Magicians Deal With It

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levitation tricks
By Ben Williams

Last week, I performed with another magician who made a statement that surprised me. The magician was packing up to go home, and during the conversation he said ‘I don’t think people really believe in levitation tricks.’ All the way home, I was thinking about what he had said. Do people REALLY believe in levitation tricks? Does it matter if they do?

Maybe that question is a bit flippant, let me try to explain myself a bit better.

Should we really allow our opinion of our spectator’s beliefs get in the way of performing the magic we want to perform?

If you are like me, then you love many types of magic. However, when it comes to performing, you find that certain types of magic do not suit your persona, although you still wish you could perform them.

One example of this is that I do not perform levitation tricks as I feel they do not fit my style. I am lighthearted with my performance style and like to have fun with the spectators. Because of this I shy away from performing levitation tricks. I believe my persona will not allow me to perform a levitation trick and do it justice, to become all serious and float something would not fit with my persona. I do really believe that levitation tricks are extremely magical, and something most lay people expect us to be able to do. Regardless of whether the spectator really believes the item is floating on a cushion of air or not am I disappointing them by not showing them something this amazing and strange?

I see a lot of people when I go out and perform, whether they truly believe in magic or not; they will still enjoy and be enamoured by a smooth and convincing performance. Spectators may not believe in magic, but they will still appreciate the performance if it is done competently and convincingly.

So I guess my question is:

Do I need to try to make them a believer, or can I just show them a competent and convincing levitation trick and leave it at that?

For example, I perform Ring Flight all of the time; I perform some convincers and have some amusing patter; I slow it down when it is needed and smack it home for the final reveal. It truly is an impossible feat, with no explanation and I feel at ease performing it again and again, in fact; I LOVE it! So why do I feel guilt when performing levitation tricks? Surely my audience doesn’t truly believe their ring just dematerialised whilst still in my hand, do they? Should I not be able to perform a levitation trick with that level of impossibility without guilt? What makes levitation tricks seem so unsuited to my style of performing?

Do the spectators care if they believe in what you are doing or not? Surely their belief is just their belief, and it doesn’t bother them as much as we think, their beliefs only bother us. Do we need to convert the beliefs of our spectators? Or can we just show them something that is weird and wonderful for fun?

I feel the only way to answer this question is to go out and try! Suck it up and see what happens! Maybe I will get reactions that are through the roof, or maybe I will find that levitation tricks do not suit my persona. It may be a horrible experience… I will only find out by trying!

What do you think about levitation tricks? Share your thoughts in the comments section below:

Easy Card Tricks – For The Magician Or The Spectators?

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I am going to recommend a few easy card tricks for you. Before I do so, I want to give you a warning:

The magic shop often gets asked to suggest easy card tricks for a customer to learn. Surprisingly, the request doesn’t always come from complete beginners. Many professional magicians are searching for quick and easy card tricks they can add to their working sets, in a hurry. There are three problems with this question:

1) What makes card tricks easy?

2) Is the magician looking for something easy for the themselves or for their spectators?

3) Why is the magician putting that criteria above everything else?

Why label them easy card tricks?

No magic trick is really easy. Yes, many tricks can have basic methods, but the performance of any magic trick is far from easy. We have all seen seemingly easy to work magic tricks performed terribly. The power of a magic trick is in its delivery and performance. As Rene Lavand teaches us in the quotation above; A trick is created, refined by many. However, it’s quality is totally dependent on each and every performance of it. It doesn’t matter how well designed the method may be, or how many variations and modifications have perfected it over time. A thousand magicians may have worked on improving it’s method. All that work falls away the moment YOU, at the end of the process, begin to perform it. Your practice, commitment, and effort to make it entertaining is the quality it will be judged on, by the audience.

Easy card tricks for you or them?

One reason even experienced magicians look for easy card tricks, is that they want tricks to allow them to forget about the sleight of hand. They like tricks that are ‘safe’. There isn’t anything wrong with magic tricks that avoid technical skill. The value of a magic trick is in the reaction it creates for the magicians audience. As a magician, the spectators are your customers. A straightforward method allows you to give more work and attention to your presentation, which is where the real magic is created.

A basic magic trick can often be easier for your spectators to follow and understand, especially if you are freed from the binds of technique to become an actor during the magic tricks performance. Many master magicians can present a spellbinding performance, whilst doing the hardest sleight of hand, but technical ability is not a prerequisite of expertise in magic. Acting is just as valuable as sleight of hand for the expert. If your motivation to search for easy card tricks is for the benefit of the spectators rather than a shortcut for yourself, it’s not a foolish quest.

Why is ‘easy’ so valuable to you?

‘Easy’ isn’t a terrible thing. However, it needs to be lower down your list of requirements. If you genuinely intend to perform the magic you choose to learn, make the presentation the most significant factor in its selection. Choose magic tricks that amaze and inspire you. Magic tricks that blow you away when you watch them performed.

Forget about the work or effort required to learn them, that’s only an indication of how much time and effort you will need to put in. If you begin your search intending to only put in the minimum amount of effort possible, you probably won’t be prepared to give the right amount of time to the presentation, to make ANY trick worth learning.

An ‘easy’ list.

OK, I’ve given you my warning, here’s a short list of a few quite easy card tricks you can start learning right away:

Invisible Deck

3 Card Monte By Michael Skinner

White Star

Ultimate Self Working Card Tricks

BIGGER Finish – Jay Sankey

 

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Communicate Effort – Don’t Make Magic Tricks Look Easy

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learn magic tricksShould the effort to learn magic tricks be greater than the effort to perform them? If you find that you sometimes don’t get reactions to your magic tricks that you think they deserved, it could be that you are not communicating how much effort your magic takes to accomplish. Don’t make magic tricks look easy…

It’s normal to want to appear as skilled as possible to your audience. Often you may be claiming skills that you don’t really possess. This urge to demonstrate how effortlessly you can perform your magic tricks could work against you. Making your skills look trivial.

Magic is an unusual performance art because much of the most impressive detail, by its nature, needs to be hidden from the audience. Spectators don’t understand how easy or hard it is for you to perform a magic trick. How can they, as you hide the true method from them. Unless you give them some indication of a magic tricks difficulty, they can only judge it from how quickly or apparently easily you accomplished the trick.

The Speed of Your Magic Tricks is Not an Indication of Their Difficulty.

How fast you perform your magic tricks doesn’t always suggest how skilled you are. A quick series of cuts and shuffles looks impressive, and to other magicians, who understand just how hard the techniques are to master, it can amaze them. Spectators can often react quite differently. Fast can signal easy, to an audience. By slowing down sections of your card magic tricks or coin manipulation, you may find that you impress your spectators much more. Experience with the speed of your manipulation, you may be very surprised by the results.

Learn Magic Tricks That Draw Attention to the effort.

Even if, a flourish our move you perform is easy, try drawing more attention to is, by making it look much harder. Build this into the stories you present your magic tricks within.

Show that you need to concentrate. Pause as you prepare to do something impossible. Fake a false start, or even fail at your first attempt. Let the audience think they are seeing something special, something you have worked to perfect for many years. By communicating the effort, you will be adding value to the feats you are performing for their entertainment.

Learn Magic Tricks that Make the Audience Care.

Showing effort engages your spectators and makes them care about your magic tricks. They identify with the performer. Everyone has something they wish they could do. We all have unfulfilled dreams. People relate to other peoples challenges and their hard work to overcome them. That’s why reality TV shows are so successful. People want to see others overcome their challenges. We all want to see David fight Goliath.

What Would it be Like if you Could do Magic?

The effort you display doesn’t have to be over the mechanics of your sleight of hand. It’s doesn’t even have to be natural. Imagine you actually do perform magic. How would it be done? Maybe through countless hours of memorising spells? Perhaps rituals needed to take place first? Could you learn magic tricks that communicate this, that require you to reciting a spell silently under your breath? If you do a bill switch, could you be reciting something quietly to yourself at the moment the bill changes? Perhaps you need set some objects into a specific pattern around your performing area, for the magic to work? Anything that shows that the magic that is about to happen is special helps communicate effort.

What Price do You Have to Pay and How Can You Express that?

Maybe your powers come from amazing mental abilities? Do you need to build up concentration before doing something amazing? Maybe you have close close your eyes in thought, to prepare yourself for what needs to be done? You could have to pay a cost for the magic. It may drain you mentally to perform a trick. Think about ways to show spectators that you are paying for the powers you show them.

Pause and Fail.

Before performing the magic, take a moment to pause and gather your thoughts. Perhaps you could do a false start, and have to begin again. If it really is impossibly hard to do the magic you will show them, then you don’t need to succeed the first time you try.

Show Tension.

At a critical point, just as you make the magic happen, could you show tension in your body? As your hand hovers over coins, to make them move, does your hand shake a little through the effort? Tension can demonstrate effort, without you having to draw attention to it.

Learn Magic Tricks Using the Too Perfect Theory.

The too perfect theory suggests that it may be better to get a magic trick slightly wrong. The small flaw makes the magic look more believable.

For example: If you were to perform a full deck colour change, it may look better to have one card fail to change. If you draw a prediction, maybe you get it slightly wrong, but so close that it looks like you ‘almost had it’. You can see how strong this sort of ‘almost right’ result can be, by watching Derren Brown in action. Derren’s creative team are experts in the too perfect theory.

Don’t Overdo it – It’s a Fine Line.

Be careful not to overdo it. You want your show of effort to be subtle, otherwise it can look terribly fake. When you learn magic tricks be careful in rehearsal, to make your acting believable is very important. If in doubt, remember that less is more. Ham it up too much and your audience will see through it and the results will be terrible. Care to learn a little acting is just as important at your time to learn magic tricks.

Do This:

Choose your favourite magic trick and identify the moments when the magic or amazing skills happen.

Video yourself performing. Pay close attention to how much effort you seem to be applying.

Ask yourself it if you communicate great skill in those moments, or just that the method it easy if you know the secret.

Introduce a few ‘effort signals’ into the presentation, and audience test the results.
This kind of practice and act development will set your magic far above the level of most magicians. We are confident that you will be astonished by the results a little effort to do this can give you.

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