Hello, I'm a little curious about something. It's probably quite obvious, but it's late and I'm tired

I've seen a couple people mention learning one trick at a time, from beginning to end. How are you supposed to choose which trick though? I'm aware there's factors of which I think is the easiest to accomplish, and would get the best reactions. But what I think, and the spectators think, may be different. A trick I like, they may not. So instead of spending a month or more practicing a trick, and in the end finding out no one likes it. How do you go about narrowing down which trick you want to dedicate yourself to?

Well if you're like most of us you'll buy something that fools you at the magic shop and then when you learn it you'll never perform it because you won't believe it will fool anyone...

Or, you could purchase a "course" in magic, like Royal Road To Card Magic, Card College, Magic As a Hobby or even The Mark Wilson Course In Magic.

These works are designed to be learned from page 1 through to the end. You sbould use them in the way they were intended to be used.

I don't buy tricks, and I'm a bit past beginning stages. So I'm still at square one. Thanks for the advice though.

I can see that there might be many reasons why someone would want to start learning a particular trick.

I must admit that I still learn effects because they seem "cool." But I am only an amateur, so I can get away with that.

I often learn a trick because it is commercial (if I plan to perform it regularly for laypeople), or by following the recommendation of someone else.

But it is true that there are very few tricks that make it into my repertoire of performance pieces for laypeople. There are some tricks that I just play around with, but don't perform. This is only for my own enjoyment and it helps keep my interest at a high pitch.

And there are also times that I have learned things because they were included in a book that was designed to be taken as a course in magic.

But in the end, the tricks that I really dedicate myself to are the ones that I want to perform for laypeople.

That would work. What I'm saying though, is I've read around here on the board, people mention learning one trick at a time. Patter, the whole kit 'n kaboodle, beginning, middle, and end...before moving on to another trick is the best way to learn. Recommendations are a good thing to follow, but different people have different tastes. I was curious as to why you would want to dedicate yourself to a single trick, for that long, without knowing reactions.

To me, it would make much more sense, if you practiced a few tricks, tried them out on people, and refined the one that worked the best.

I do prefer to learn things one at a time because I feel that taking it nice and slow allows me to get the trick to a high standard. But when I started out, I would half-learn the mechanics, figure I had the trick "mastered" and go out and show it to people, probably badly.

Now I do tend to take things one at a time, and I don't get bored. But this may be because I also regularly rehearse the material already in my repertoire, and I perform fairly often. I talk with people here on this board, I go to magic shows, I read magic magazines, etc. I am able to keep my interest at a high level, while still learning things one at a time.

I can certainly understand your point of view, but I do feel that it is better to take things one at a time so that every piece in your repertoire is of high quality. But I may be wrong.

It takes a while for me to relate to an effect or routine if at all. When I had much more free time I could read and walk through books full of routines. The ones that sparked my imagination were the few that got more than mere technical attention. Perhaps two dozen or so routines in all over the last twenty five years.

Thus, this board still entertains

Dave

If you stick to material by the "greats" then you can more or less trust that, well-performed, it'll get a good reaction.

Then you can practice the heck out of it without worry if it's worth the time or not.

Paul