Welcome to the Café, Les, from another fairly new member!

I'm just starting to practice rubber band effects, and I like your routine! Something for me to work towards. Thanks for sharing this.

-Phil in KC

I found out a looooong time ago that you can never exactly know what the lay audience will like until you test. WE may like something and think that it is better than some other routine and yet the darn audience continues to like one over the other. The secret is to be happy that folks like ANYTHING that you do. Cut the stuff that does not seem to be working and look for something that does. In the end I found that whatever 'they' liked 'I' liked.

A for instance from my own past: I hated the Insurance Policy. Thought it was a goofy, stupid trick. Then I needed a quick M.C. bit for a magic class graduation. I tossed it in and did it and the audience FELL APART! The stupid trick went straight into my act and I did it for EVERY single show I did from that time on. It never let me down.

It's the same with the Rubber Band stuff. It's not so much the routining as it is that some things with Rubber Bands are just better than others. As good as some Ring onto Rubber Band routines look they always seemed 'gimmicked' in some way to me. CMH on the other hand is one of the most open and straight forward pieces of magic out there. Best,

You know, Brad - you're right. Why CMH should impress more than ring-on-band tricks I don't know, but if it does, who are we to complain? This weekend I switched the order round: started with ring on band, finishing with CMH and the Paul Wilson tip as mentioned by Clark above. Went down great!

A quick routine that I get a lot of mileage out of is CMH with two yellow #19 rubber bands once by yourself, and again with a volunteer, then I make the switch and finish with stargazer with a yellow star. After displaying the two round rubber bands, and changing one to a star souvenir right before their eyes you have a knock out routine that can only be described as magical.
HAVE FUN
Al Angello

You guys should look into Jumper. Once when the rubber band is broken, you can do 2-3 more tricks with it.

I use Pinnacle, Band-it, Jumper, CMH, Traveling Cash, Rhing Thing in my sets.

I just got Russell Lead's DVD and will be adding some of his tricks into my routine.

I like to do the first half of Pinnacle and finish with Rhing Thing.

CMH with Stargazer.

thumb penetration, with Vince Mendoza's broken restore.

Vinny Marini's break away bracelet.

I showed Vinny an effect recently which could be what you might be interested in. Depending on what kind of ring magic you perform, it can transition perfectly from rubberband to ring magic.

With one band dangled from your middle finger and one stretched between the index and middle, you announce that the rubberband will penetrate the other rubberband, but really pull it through your finger. It sounds like I'm pushing it, but the patter justifies it a lot more

Mark show your effect to Al he will appreciate it
vinny

I agree with you on your assessment of Ring and Band. I developed my own routine that had bits and pieces from various sources. In my opinion it was superb, lots of very visual penetrations.
But it don't compare to my CMH or Ring and String routines.

Even though it was technically more difficult and visually more impressive (you see the bands melt through the ring), it didn't get the same reaction as my other tricks.

There is an issue with visibility, the ring and band can be considered 'micro-magic', and thus it means fewer people can see the effect and overall group dynamics caused by one person's reaction affecting another is gone.
You cannot share the 'experience' with your friends and so they won't like the effect as much.

CMH can be seen by a wider group and so impresses more due to pier pressure to conform with the majority. (Even if a person hates the trick, they will pretend they like it due to their friends liking it).

Whatever the reason, my ring and band routine has taken a back-seat in my show repertoire and now I pretty much stick with ring and string and the more bigger routines.

Steve

KU I agree with you about ring and string y\ go to my post you will see I mention what you just stated.
however for on one rubberband and ring get just as good reaction ans string and ring....
vinny

Traveling Tips or Traveling Cash is also visual

I love rubber band magic! Rings too!

I will whip up a video as soon as I can