A routine is something that has more than one phase. Everyone has a morning routine that they follow religiously. They do it over and over, and it involves multiple steps, i.e. shower, getting dressed, eating breakfast, brushing teeth, etc.
An example of a routine is the ambitious card. The card rises to the top a few times, and each time it gets more impossible. That builds the suspense to where it seems that the magician just can't possibly get the card to the top of the deck again, yet they always seem to find a way. Another example of a routine would be cups and balls. The balls vanish and appear under the cups, jump from cup to cup, change color, and finally turn into lemons or oranges.
Both of those examples are routines, and have a climax at the end. In order to have a climax, you must consistently have built up the magic. We'll use cups and balls for this example. The balls are vanishing, appearing, and jumping around. That's magical. The climax of the trick is the final loads, and rightfully so. Without the first few stages though, the final loads just turn into another trick, and that defeats the purpose of a good climax, to let the audience know when the routine is over.
A trick is something quick and to the point. More or less has minimum building up the suspense, and one "magical" phase. Most tricks aren't meant to be stand-alone pieces, and require more to make it into more of a routine. A good opener, middle, and closer.
Some example of tricks that most of you are familiar with are Fraud, Kaos, Indecent, Witness, etc. I don't own most of those, but the core of it seems as if it's a trick. With Kaos, the card goes through the window. Indecent, the card goes through the bag. Witness, the card changes inside the bag.
When I think about turning tricks into routines, the first thing that comes to my mind would be Weighted Aces by Gregory Wilson. Weighted Aces is his version of Dr. Daley's Last Trick. Greg takes a basic (but strong) color-changing aces trick and turns it into a routine, which plays out like a game about which ace is where. This is a very strong routine with 2 phases. The first phase is pretty straight forward and the audience plays along with it. But when the climax hits them, they're stunned.
That's the difference between a trick and a routine. But you as the magician need to take it a step further and not quit now. Instead of just doing something like an ACR or Weighted Aces, put the tricks into a routine itself. Go the whole 9 yards and take the time to put together a solid routine, consisting of an opener, middle, and closer. People say they do this, but then I hear how they just performed 2 card monte and left. Or the guy thought that Panic was just "a neat little trick." The reason for that is you're just doing tricks, and not performing magic.
Basically what I'm saying is that I'm sick of seeing magicians perform tricks. Why stop there? Do yourself a favor, and your audience, and start putting them into routines. How is a magician able to build any rapport with their audience? How is a magician suppose to gain any credibility as a good performer, instead of just Uncle Harry at Thanksgiving?? How are they able to do anything productive if they're just doing a trick and leaving?
Truth be told, you can't. By simply doing hit and run magic, it's hurting you, the performer, in the long run. You're not learning how to adapt to a specific type of audience, how to exit gracefully, nor how to open and close a full length set, which is a lot more different that just a 2 minute magic trick. Especially if you mess up, there's no way to recover with another trick, unless it's planned. There have been numerous times I've completely blown a trick, but luckily for me and my audience, I'm able to move on and recover easily enough, because I know exactly what my next move will be.
Case in point...there is a big distinct difference between doing tricks and performing magic. One of the things that separates the two is how you present it...do you do tricks or routines?
If you read through all this, than I truly hope you got something useful from it and it helped change the way you think about certain things.
Best.
Steve
An example of a routine is the ambitious card. The card rises to the top a few times, and each time it gets more impossible. That builds the suspense to where it seems that the magician just can't possibly get the card to the top of the deck again, yet they always seem to find a way. Another example of a routine would be cups and balls. The balls vanish and appear under the cups, jump from cup to cup, change color, and finally turn into lemons or oranges.
Both of those examples are routines, and have a climax at the end. In order to have a climax, you must consistently have built up the magic. We'll use cups and balls for this example. The balls are vanishing, appearing, and jumping around. That's magical. The climax of the trick is the final loads, and rightfully so. Without the first few stages though, the final loads just turn into another trick, and that defeats the purpose of a good climax, to let the audience know when the routine is over.
A trick is something quick and to the point. More or less has minimum building up the suspense, and one "magical" phase. Most tricks aren't meant to be stand-alone pieces, and require more to make it into more of a routine. A good opener, middle, and closer.
Some example of tricks that most of you are familiar with are Fraud, Kaos, Indecent, Witness, etc. I don't own most of those, but the core of it seems as if it's a trick. With Kaos, the card goes through the window. Indecent, the card goes through the bag. Witness, the card changes inside the bag.
When I think about turning tricks into routines, the first thing that comes to my mind would be Weighted Aces by Gregory Wilson. Weighted Aces is his version of Dr. Daley's Last Trick. Greg takes a basic (but strong) color-changing aces trick and turns it into a routine, which plays out like a game about which ace is where. This is a very strong routine with 2 phases. The first phase is pretty straight forward and the audience plays along with it. But when the climax hits them, they're stunned.
That's the difference between a trick and a routine. But you as the magician need to take it a step further and not quit now. Instead of just doing something like an ACR or Weighted Aces, put the tricks into a routine itself. Go the whole 9 yards and take the time to put together a solid routine, consisting of an opener, middle, and closer. People say they do this, but then I hear how they just performed 2 card monte and left. Or the guy thought that Panic was just "a neat little trick." The reason for that is you're just doing tricks, and not performing magic.
Basically what I'm saying is that I'm sick of seeing magicians perform tricks. Why stop there? Do yourself a favor, and your audience, and start putting them into routines. How is a magician able to build any rapport with their audience? How is a magician suppose to gain any credibility as a good performer, instead of just Uncle Harry at Thanksgiving?? How are they able to do anything productive if they're just doing a trick and leaving?
Truth be told, you can't. By simply doing hit and run magic, it's hurting you, the performer, in the long run. You're not learning how to adapt to a specific type of audience, how to exit gracefully, nor how to open and close a full length set, which is a lot more different that just a 2 minute magic trick. Especially if you mess up, there's no way to recover with another trick, unless it's planned. There have been numerous times I've completely blown a trick, but luckily for me and my audience, I'm able to move on and recover easily enough, because I know exactly what my next move will be.
Case in point...there is a big distinct difference between doing tricks and performing magic. One of the things that separates the two is how you present it...do you do tricks or routines?
If you read through all this, than I truly hope you got something useful from it and it helped change the way you think about certain things.
Best.
Steve
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