My Start in Magic & Pete Firman

This is going to be a bit of a strange blog post as I’m going to be talking about a few things that all involve Pete Firman in some way. I recently saw his show at the Edinburgh Fringe which prompted this.

I’m not really a fan of when magicians answer “How did you get started in magic?” by saying they got a beginner’s magic set for a Christmas or birthday. I’d be willing to bet that at least 80% of children got a set growing up, but its only us sad bastards that continued it. Therefore, I think most of us had another moment where it “clicked”, and for me that involved Pete Firman and 3 other magicians. It was a TV show called Monkey Magic, broadcast in the UK in 2003. Aside from Pete, it also starred Ali Cook, Johnathan Goodwin and Pete McCahon. I always remember my Gran telling me to watch it as she knew I had an interest in magic and without it, I doubt I’d be doing magic today. I remember how they would show you a trick before the ad break and promise to reveal it afterwards. As a ten-year-old this was great, a chance to learn some really cool magic. I was only slightly disappointed as the secret to eating a goldfish (which before the break they told you, it involved a carrot) was to really eat the goldfish, it would taste horrible which is where the carrot came in to take away the taste. Another trick was how to levitate, with the solution being to jump to your death off a building while getting someone to record it and then play the tape backwards after your death.

After Monkey Magic I remember watching him in Dirty Tricks, another UK TV show, which also introduced me to Barry and Stuart and another series called the Secret World of Magic. This was when Pete and Ali would travel the world meeting and showing off other magicians. This show was my first exposure to magicians like Rene Lavand and Juan Tamariz. He’s also had a few guest spots here and there and starred in the Magicians on the BBC recently too.

So what’s the point in all this rambling? Well aside from telling you one of the main reasons I got into and stuck with magic, I seen him live for the first time the other night. I went through to the Fringe with my girlfriend and when deciding what shows to go to, I wanted to make sure I took her to see a magician she might actually enjoy. I mean there’s so many magicians out there that I know I’d enjoy but I know for a fact that she wouldn’t. Thankfully she loved the show, as did I, and wondered why he was performing to such a small audience when Kevin Bridges is selling out 13,000 seats at the Hydro for 16 nights, which is high praise indeed. Was one of the highlights of the fringe for me. Finally getting to see Pete live and he didn’t disappoint. He’s incredibly funny and you can tell he is confident with great stage presence. Can only hope that one day he is selling out that many tickets, because he definitely deserves it.

DPS

I’ve spoke about laziness on the blog before, but I’ve got some examples this time. Too many magicians seem to think that they don’t need to put the effort in when practicing a move. I’ve seen lots of people post shit bottom deals, teach moves that they can barely do themselves and it all comes down to laziness. I’m very much against putting magic on video up for public viewing. The majority of tricks can be figured out within a few watches and it doesn’t help that a lot of the performers aren’t very good in the first place. However, recording yourself performing a move and sending it to get constructive criticism is one of the best ways of improving your magic.

Below are 2 videos of me performing the Diagonal Palm Shift, 5 years apart. I’m aware I still need to work on it, and I am constantly working on it. I’m re-reading the description in Erdnase, re-watching Ricky Smith and Tony Changs videos on it. It really is one of my favourite moves to practice though. It's just a beautifully constructed move.

I haven’t really practiced that much in the last couple of months either due to traveling Asia but now I’m back I’ve got some good ideas I’d like to try out, specifically on the blog/reddit. I’ve thought of doing a sort of video progress of me learning some sort of move. Documenting my process behind learning it. Would this be something anybody would be interested in?

Anyway enjoy the videos the password is DPS.

Moves 101

It’s amazing how easy it is to get distracted when you have a load of college work to do. I mean, its been ages since I last wrote a blog post and the minute I have all sorts of deadlines coming in I suddenly feel like writing one. This was more inspired by reading posts online of folk beginning card magic and asking where to start. I thought fuck it I’ll make a guide, I mean why not. I’ve been a beginner and I’ve also been around long enough to know the good stuff and the shit stuff. This isn’t really a guide as much as it’s moves and shit I think you should know. Everybody always says you need a good control, false shuffle and a double lift or some bollocks like that. So this is a list of moves I think every card magician should know (it’s also not necessarily the order I think you should learn them either). Oh and if you just starting, buy The Royal Road, there’s a reason people recommend it (Card College is a good second book and third and fourth etc).

Control

So first things first you need a control of some sort. Someone picks a card and you need to do something with it. Classic Pass. Simple. Learn it from a book too. And not some shite “most invisible pass ever” that you can get from various download websites. Read the pass, practice the pass, and in a year (roughly) you’ll have a good pass. It’s one of these moves that is gonna take ages to get down to a point where you can do it in front of people (hint – misdirection helps) but it’s the best control there is. Honourable mentions for the DMB Spread Control http://www.artofmagic.com/products/dmb-spread-control and fucking false shuffling the card, which leads us nicely onto the next move.

False Shuffle

2 options here, one for overhand, one for riffle (potentially a third option for table shuffles but I’m not going to get into that here). Overhand I don’t think much gets better than in injog shuffle. Simple, easy and to the point. I honestly don’t need a full deck false shuffle that often, generally just controlling a small portion, but if you want the full deck controlled, for a riffle shuffle you can’t beat the Truffle Shuffle https://www.artofmagic.com/products/truffle-shuffle. I mean anything Derek Delgaudio releases, touches, says or breathes on should be paid the highest of attention to and this is one of his only commercial releases. Similar to the Grey Shuffle by Ben Earl but better. Even Ben admits that.

Double Lift

Most of this has been opinion so far, I mean I can’t see much room for debate with my choices but too each his own, however this is fact. I will argue with anybody who disagrees with this and so many magicians do. PUSH OFF DOUBLE LIFT. Capitalised, bolded and underlined so you see it. Best double lift by far. No get ready or break, you just push it off and turn it over, like a normal person would do. No fancy spiny shite just turning a card over. Tony Chang had one of the best descriptions of this years ago on themagicsession where he had a lecture. It may be in his book, if/when that ever comes out. Andi Gladwin also has a DVD on it https://www.vanishingincmagic.co.uk/magic/magic-dvds/master-pushoff/ which is decent but a lot of it is playing around with it for ages till you get it down. I mean you’re literally practicing to turn over two cards instead of one. But this is the best double lift. Ever.

Top Change

Yeah this isn’t really in the same category is the rest as this is just the one move but it’s a fucking good one at that. Descriptions can be found in Royal Road, Card College etc. Get David Williamsons download on it http://www.artofmagic.com/products/topchange or his penguin live lecture where he talks about it http://www.penguinmagic.com/p/3702. You don’t need to do it the way he does but his thoughts are invaluable for performing it. And David Williamson is amazing anyway and you should have anything he has released.

Get they 4 things down and I mean really well, and you already be better than 90% of the magicians out there. And please practice, don’t rush out and perform any of this. Learn them, practice them, practice them some more, practice them again and then and only when it looks amazing show someone. It could be months or several years but they deserve your time. Hopefully the next post won’t take so long to put out but no promises.

One Last Thing

Learn a coin trick or a propless mentalism trick or something. The time will come where you’ll be out (providing you’re unlike a lot of magicians and actually have a social life and some friends) and someone will ask to see something. And you don’t take your cards out with you (hopefully you fucking don’t anyway). Atlas Brookings has a lot of good propless stuff (http://www.penguinmagic.com/p/5253, is a good place to start, also a fan of his newest book The Intrepid Rogue’s Manual to Deception http://www.atlasmentalism.com/AtlasProductsCatalog.html which has a few nice propless effects in it) and I’m really liking Coinfabulation by Looch too, which can be found in The Black Project, which is out of print, or his penguin live lecture http://www.penguinmagic.com/p/5254. Coin magic wise, get Bobo if you’ve never done anything like that before. I’m currently enjoying Primary Movement from Ben Earls “This is not a Box”. Nice little effect and I’m looking forward to performing it http://benjaminearl.com/magic/.