Knowledge and/or skill?

[richardm]

Some people have a natural aptitude, no doubt. But I really do think that you could make a dollar bill appear inside a kiwi fruit. And you could (probably) learn to play piano like Glen Gould (I'm assuming he's a good pianist, I've never heard of him )

Thing is, when you see Glen play all you see is him effortlessly tickling the ivories while beaming at the audience. What you don't see is the years of practice that got him to that spot. People like Mozart who have an quite remarkable innate ability are very thin on the ground - for most of us, practice, practice, practice is the only way to get that good at something. I think that most of us could be that good - but we never put in the dedicated hours of practice necessary.

So yes, get that book. Read it. Pick one or two things that you fancy being able to do, and do it again, and again, and again.

I'm a case in point. I like magic. I really wanted to be able to do two things: a good coin palm, and a good coin vanish. I've tinkered with all sorts of things in the meantime, but practiced the classic palm in any spare moment. And now, after literally years of doing it, I can palm any coin very naturally. Now, I just have to work it into a trick

Second bit - the vanish. I chose a retention of vision vanish. And where I used to practice palming coins, I now do the occasional vanish as well. For ages I sucked. The other day I got a double take from somebody.

Keep doing it - the fog really will clear. But you must persist.

Cor, what a ramble!

 

[Bob Klase]

then I might consider acquiring a copy of "Cards as weapons

I can't think of a worse book to get if learning card tricks/magic is your goal.

Ricki Jay's book is an interesting read, but it doesn't teach magic or tricks. It barely teaches card throwing.

 

[Jorghnassen]

I can't think of a worse book to get if learning card tricks/magic is your goal.

Ricki Jay's book is an interesting read, but it doesn't teach magic or tricks. It barely teaches card throwing.

But I don't want to learn magic tricks, I just want to throw cards . You know, what if someone breaks into your house while your playing solitaire, and there's no gun/knife/bat/blunt/sharp object within reach, how else are you going to defend your property?

And richardm, shame on you for not knowing Glen Gould. But if you want another analogy, I could study and play chess every waking hour and never ever reach the level of Gary Kasparov. Now please tell me you've heard of Kasparov.

Though I understand what you're trying to tell me, I'm not sure what varying degrees of difficulty are involved in different magic tricks, and I assume there are tougher ones (e.g. certain tricks that can be done easily with a trick deck but also throught more effort with a real deck of cards) that even with intensive practice, only few really good magicians can perform.

/with hours of practice, I can barely do one one-hand cut of a deck of cards. I'm sure bigger hands (or just a bigger right hand) would help... That or smaller cards.

 

[Lavie Enrose]

Also, are there some people that just would never be able to do card tricks, well harder ones (some ARE harder right?)

Yes. There are some card effects that have been created by some magicians that are very difficult for most to do. Some of these are left on the side, there to challenge, and others like, Cardini's effects, have been brought into the mainstream and raised the bar in card magic.