Tony Slydini, an Italian, was born in the year 1901 and passed away on 1991. He was a master at the art of misdirection. He used solely sleight of hands and misdirection to perform his own brand of magic tricks without the use of any gimmick. For 55 years in performing magic, he has never read a book on magic.
Paper Balls In The Hat
In the first video below, you will see Slydini performed his “Paper Balls in the Hat” magic trick. Slydini crushed and rolled up 3 to 4 pieces of paper into a ball each time and make them appear and disappear in his hand. He then put the ball held in his left hand invisibly into the hat with his right hand. As Slydini opened his left hand, the paper ball had disappeared. This routine is repeated 3 to 4 times and never once do you see him putting the ball into the hat. At the end of the performance, the hat which was shown to be empty at the beginning of the performance is then filled with paper balls.
The secret to the The Paper Balls in the Hat magic trick:
This is done by a combination of
lapping,
sleight of hands and
misdirection.
Lapping is a skill where you use your lap (that is covered by the table) to serve as a platform where you use to drop items onto from your hands or from the table if you want to make the items vanish. You can also pick these items up again into your hands when you make them reappear. Slydini used this technique very often and Dai Vernon (a.k.a. Professor) commented that the powerful technique of lapping had not been utilized enough nor developed further beyond what Slydini had done with lapping.
Desensitising The Audience With Repeated Actions
Note that Slydini repeats his action over and over again. There are times when you taught that he was up to some trick but nothing actually happened. When he first opened his left hand, you expect to see the paper ball disappear but instead the paper ball is still there. The next time he repeated his action, the paper ball actually disappeared.
Slydini used repeated actions to confuse the audience. When the audience see the same actions repeated many times without anything actually happening, they will lose their alertness when they see the same actions again and that is when he actually do something sneaky.
I must really salute Slydini for his dexterity because even though I have already known his secret moves, I still can’t catch him doing his move at that exact moment when I’m watching out for it a hundred and one percent. Not only is his action so fast, but more admirably the action is so natural.
Watch Slydini’s Left Hand
Watch the video again.
At 0:22, Slydini put his left hand down below the table for the first time. The first time he put his left hand down, there was absolutely no trick.
At 0:29, Slydini showed the ball was still in his left hand.
At 0:31, Slydini transferred the ball from the left hand to the right hand while the right hand was covering the left hand. He then dropped the ball from the right hand onto his lap.
Lapping
From 0:47 to 0:51, Slydini put his left hand down below the table for the second time. This time he picked up the first ball dropped on his lap and transferred it to his right hand. This ball was held in the right hand and subsequently dropped into the hat while he repeated his previous actions. Even though the second ball remained in the left hand, the first ball which was in the right hand had been dropped into the hat. You may think that nothing was dropped into the hat because the ball was still in the left hand. Moreover, this series of action happened in the beginning and your memory reinforced you to think that the right hand is empty and nothing is put into the hat. You thought that it was nothing but some theatrical gesturing.
At 1:38, you will find that there is no more paper on the table to be rolled into paper ball nor are there any more balls in his hands. Nevertheless he repeated his routine again because he still has one more ball on his lap. This magic trick can never be completed with the same number of balls rolled up appearing in the hat unless he carries out his routine for one last time.
Slydini’s “The Impossible Dream” Magic Trick
The second video shows 2 magic tricks by Slydini. This is of a much later date than the previous video.
The first 4 minutes is again the “Hat and Paper Balls” magic trick.
The second trick after the first 4 minutes is Slydini’s torn and restored cigarettes trick, which Slydini called it in this video, “The Impossible Dream”.
Note that at 2:04, when Slydini was transferring the previous paper ball in his left hand to his right hand, the ball was not crushed properly and some edges of the paper were visible during the transfer. At 3:17, when Slydini was putting the transferred paper ball in his right hand into the red box, you can notice some trace of yellow paper at the top of the red box while he dropped it into the box.
From where Dick Cavett was sitting, he could actually see what was happening. Nevertheless, he pretended to be ignorant and amazed by the trick which helped to reinforce the audience’s amazement. The second magic trick entitled, “The Impossible Dream”, Slydini restored a handful of tobacco and paper into a cigarette. There is actually a third magic trick but it is rather short.
Notice how Slydini involves his audience in his performance. In this way, the audience’s attention is directed to what he has to do away from what he is doing in a split moment. It is also an important way to hold the audience’s attention and interest, another important aspect of performing magic.
Obviously, Slydini could have done all those things himself instead of asking the audience to do so but still he chose to get the audience involved.
At 5:09, Slydini picked up a cigarette on his lap and held it in his right hand as he rested his right hand at the edge of the table. At 5:14, Slydini dropped all the tobacco and paper on his left hand onto his lap as he turned his left hand to face downward while he pushed the cigarette held in his right hand to emerge from his left hand, giving the illusion that the torn cigarette had been restored. At 5:18, you can see Slydini dusting off the tobacco on his lap.
For the third magic trick where Slydini stretches two halves of a cigarette into two complete cigarettes, just watch when did Slydini put his hands below the table. Once you understand the principle of lapping, you will understand how he did this magic trick. And notice how he directed the audience’s attention away with his hand and eyes while the other hand made his sneaky move. This is the essence of misdirection. Nevertheless Slydini did it so well that even you are aware of the technique, you cannot help but follow his lead and his crucial sleight of hands are simply too fast and natural
So far in my articles, you may have noticed that I have presented the process of learning magic and the principles and techniques used in magic tricks progressively in a systematic manner.
If you follow my articles carefully, you will have a clear and good understanding of the essentials of the secrets behind any magic trick. Subsequently, it will be easy for you to begin learning magic systematically, selecting the types of magic you like to specialize in instead of groping in the dark, learning magic tricks at random which may be either too difficult or too easy but meaningless. That will save you lots of time and money.
Choosing The Right Magic Trick
Moreover, different magic tricks have different effects on the audience. So it is important for you to know what you are trying to achieve with your magic tricks. Are you trying to build rapport with someone? Or is it you want to break the ice with a stranger? Perhaps you are trying to focus the attention of a group of familiar or unfamiliar people on yourself or you are simply trying to entertain your family and friends. Using the wrong magic tricks and performing the right magic tricks with the wrong presentation will not bring you the desired effects. Thus picking up magic tricks randomly here and there, especially free magic tricks on the internet will not help you achieve your objectives.
Nevertheless, I will only touch on the general principles but not into the details as I do not wish to expose the secrets behind magic openly. These articles are meant to help those who are truly interested in investing into learning the art of magic and making the journey easier for them. This is to prevent exposing the secrets behind the art of magic to nosey curiosity seekers who do not respect the art of magic.
Magician Versus Con Artist
Magic is essentially an art of deception. The line is extremely thin between a con artist and a magician.
A magician uses the art to entertain whereas a con artist uses the art to rip off his targets in order to benefit himself unethically. Unfortunately, there are many half baked magicians who are also part-time conmen. In the process of learning magic, I was unfortunate enough to come across a few of these. If you want to learn magic, you must be clear about your objectives and make a clear stand on how you are going to use what you learn from the art of magic.
4 Essential Principles Of Magic
The essential principles of performing magic tricks are
the force,
misdirection,
cunning phrasing of words and
sleights
Understanding how these four principles work will enable you to know how more than 70 percent of all magic tricks work.
The Principle Of Force
The principle of force as the name implies, forces the audience to make a choice that is predetermined by the magician.
For example a magician let the audience pick a card at random. The card that the audience eventually pick is the card that the magician ‘forces’ the audience to pick. Of course the audience will not realize that if the magician is skilful in the execution of the force.
The force can be executed by usingprops, sleights, mathematical principles or a sequence of instructions dictated by the magician to the audience.
A magic trick that uses the principle of force is usually one where the magician predicts an outcome such as predicting the card chosen by the audience.
The field of magic known as Mentalism (mind reading) uses the principle of force very often. One such application of the principle of force is known as the Magician’s Choice.
Misdirection
Misdirection simply means distracting the audience.
Stage magic is composed heavily of stage props and misdirection.
A very simple thing to do is to direct your audience to look at somewhere else away from what you are sneakily trying to do elsewhere. Directing the audience to look elsewhere is a visual misdirection. Besides that you can misdirect the audience by keeping them busy with something to do or engaging them in a conversation.
I would like to call that mental misdirection. Another form of mental misdirection is to make the audience think that you have done something, say with your hands, when you have actually done something else.
The master of misdirection is late Tony Slydini. To understand and appreciate how does misdirection works in magic tricks, it will benefit you greatly to watch Tony Slydini perform his magic tricks.
Verbal Manipulation
The third principle listed here involves a manipulation of words. I would like to call this double-talking. Whenever a magician engages the audience in a conversation, his instructions and predictions may seem to mean something but it could also mean another thing.
Besides double-talking, he would possibly instruct the audience to do something subconsciously by a play of words.
Sleights
Sleights are skilful manipulation of hands. Mastering sleights is the most time consuming task magicians have to spend their time on.
Although it may not necessarily be true that the magician who is the most skilful at his sleights is the best magician but a magician must be skilful at his sleights in order to be a good magician.
Thus I have always advocated beginner magicians or aspiring magicians to learn magic tricks that do not involve the use of sleights in the beginning but to perform simpler form of magic tricks themselves time to practice their sleights.
In my next article, I will talk more about Misdirection in magic.
If you are doing card magic or coin magic, there are many sleights that you need to master before you could progress to the more professional magic tricks respectively.
Avoid Sleights
If you were to wait for yourself to perfect these sleights, you would have probably lost interest or given up magic by then.
I would then suggest that you do the following while you spend time privately to master the necessary sleights over a period of time.
Using Gimmicks
Start with some gimmicks. You can get a variety of magical gimmicks either from your local magic shops or purchase them from online magic shops. From gimmicks, you may want to progress on to self-working magic tricks using playing cards.
Self-Working Magic Tricks
Self-working tricks as the name implies are magic tricks where their effects happen naturally when you follow the procedures of the performance routines accordingly. Self-working magic tricks require little or no sleight of hands at all and are therefore relatively manageable.
Begin With Using Gimmicks In Magic Tricks
Start with some gimmicks. You can get a variety of magical gimmicks either from your local magic shops or purchase them from online magic shops. From gimmicks, you may want to progress on to self-working magic tricks using playing cards. Self-working tricks as the name implies are magic tricks where their effects happen naturally when you follow the procedures of the performance routines accordingly. Self-working magic tricks require little or no sleight of hands at all and are therefore relatively manageable.
Mentalism Requires Less Sleight Of Hands
Generally, professional magic tricks using playing cards or coins require many sleights that take a lifetime to master. Mentalism magic (mind reading) generally require relatively less sleights (or in fact none at all) as compared to card magic and coin magic. So you may want to begin with mentalism first instead of other types of magic such as card magic or coin magic.
Educate Yourself Through Watching DVDs
For your personal education in magic, I would recommend that you watch the World’s Greatest Magic DVD series. Each World’s Greatest Magic DVD series features a particular magic trick performed by different magicians with their individual style of presentation. From watching these different presentations, they would enrich your experience with magic. That is the basis of how we learn and become an expert in any subject in any field – with continued exposure to the same thing, experiencing them again in a variety of ways.
Magic props and gimmicks are essential items magicians used in performing magic.
In the course of performing magic, the items used vary from ordinary daily objects in your immediate surroundings or a borrowed objects from the audience to specialized magical items made to create magical effects. Although some items used in performing magic are ordinary objects but they are favorite items used by magicians such as playing cards, silk and ropes.
Tony Slydini, the master of misdirection, used playing cards as well as ropes and cigarettes in performing his magic routines. Other items are made to look ordinary but in actual fact they are not. They look ordinary because we want the audience to believe that they are ordinary. For example, some playing cards are modified in a specific way that certain magical effects could be performed. These items vary from big props used in stage magic to smaller items used in close-up magic, generally referred to as gimmicks.
Stage Magic Routines & Props
In stage magic, there are standard routines performed by stage magicians which we are familiar with as children watching magic show on television. In the field of stage magic, only the more exceptional magicians are able to present more innovative routines which the general public is less exposed to; or they could present a standard routine in a more entertaining manner.
This is due to the fact that the props of stage magicians are pretty standard just as what we have been regularly exposed to. These are pigeons, rabbits, playing cards, guillotine, hat, custom made boxes for assistants to be locked up in, magic wands, silks, rings, etc. As many props for stage magic are relatively big as they are needed to be presented from the stage to audience seated a distance away, they are pretty expensive to purchase.
Thus amateur magicians may find it financially difficult to get more expensive props to incorporate into their repertoire and this is apart from the cost of learning the secrets to performing them.
This is due to the fact that the props of stage magicians are pretty standard just as what we have been regularly exposed to. These are pigeons, rabbits, playing cards, guillotine, hat, custom made boxes for assistants to be locked up in, magic wands, silks, rings, etc. As many props for stage magic are relatively big as they are needed to be presented from the stage to audience seated a distance away, they are pretty expensive to purchase. Thus amateur magicians may find it financially difficult to get more expensive props to incorporate into their repertoire and this is apart from the cost of learning the secrets to performing them.
David Copperfield
If you have watched David Copperfield’s performance, you would have noticed that he is able to perform very simple and standard routines interwoven into a dance with a storyline in it. David Copperfield is able to inject entertainment into his performance that makes his show more interesting than an amateur magician who merely performs the standard routines as performed by many other magicians.
Close-Up Magic & Props
My brief discussion on stage magic is to show that items used in stage magic is standard stage props which we would not be using. What I would like to focus on here are items used in close-up magic. Close-up magic is more relevant to the non-professional magicians (since we are only interested in amusing our friends and ourselves) whether you are just a hobbyist or someone who intend to pursue magic as a profession in the future. The most common objects used are:
Playing Cards
Coins
Balls and Cups
Sponge Balls
Rubber Bands
Ropes
Silks
ESP Cards
Business Cards (Name Cards)
Money (Bills)
Handkerchief
Cutleries from dining tables
Invisible Thread
They could be almost any objects lying around you. Among these items, playing cards and coins are among the most common followed by sponge balls and rubber bands. Many close-up magicians are dedicated particularly in the field of card magic and coin magic and the magic tricks devised for playing cards and coins accumulated since early 20th century are numerous and so are the sleights involved in these two types of magic.
ESP Cards are more commonly used by mentalists (mind reading magicians) and magic tricks involving the use of ESP cards can be modified and replaced by normal playing cards generally. The magic act performed by mentalists is known as mentalism.
People learn magic for different purposes. The basic motivation for learning magic is that magic amazes and intrigues other people and ourselves. If you perform a magic trick to your friend, the usual response you get is “how did you do it?”
The first motive of that response is to satisfy a curiosity. After you have shared the secret to the magic trick you performed to your friend (which you shouldn’t), he/she may or may not choose to learn how to perform it. This is where I draw the distinction between a curiosity seeker and one who is interested in magic.
The one who chooses not to learn the magic trick after knowing the secret is merely a curiosity seeker.
The one who chooses to learn it wants to perform it in order to amaze and intrigue others just as much as he was amazed and intrigued.
Taking that even a step further, each one has one or more of the following motives:
A natural passion for magic especially developed since childhood;
to become a professional magician in order earn a living;
to entertain family and friends;
to impress ladies.
The last three reasons are extrinsically motivated while the first is one is intrinsically motivated. Humans generally want to possess power beyond their physical abilities. Being able to perform magic not only gives the audience the impression but also satisfies the performer’s imagination that he/she possesses some supernatural powers beyond his/her natural self.
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