Becoming A Magician

How to Become A Magician - It's Never Too Late

Learning Resources

Magic Tricks With Cards: Where Do I Start Learning?

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So where do you learn magic tricks with cards? Just about every magician will tell you to start with the Card College series, by Roberto Giobbi – “Card College: A Complete Course in Sleight-of-Hand Card Magic.”

These books will take you from the very beginning – how to hold the cards, what to call the edges of the cards, etc. Giobbi then progresses through five volumes, continually building on everything that came before.

As a matter of fact, there are more than 5 volumes. Giobbi put out “Introduction to Card Magic” as a great place to start. It’s perfect because it’s a pdf – convenient and great for the immediate gratification addicts like me:). It even has video clips in it, which I found super helpful. That’s where I began. You can download it right how here for only about 8 bucks.

You can get book 1 – Card College, Vol. 1: A Complete Course in Sleight-of-Hand Card Magic on Amazon. So many magicians swear by learning magic from books. I understand that things enter the brain a certain way when you try to understand the written description. But I am REALLY visual and like to ALSO get a video demonstration when at all possible.

That’s why I liked volumes 1 and 2 so much. You can get PDF versions of those, each containing videos of the moves. Awesome. Unfortunately, that stopped with volumes 3-5.

You can get the first two volumes in pdf form with the videos below for $45 each:

Card College 1

Card College 2

You Can Do Magic Tricks With Cards Without Sleight-of-Hand

card college light picAs the name of the main series implies, it is a course on sleight-of-hand card magic. That means it teaches you handle cards in a magical way, to create the illusions and spectacles that are so cool in card magic.

Because of the numerical and mathematical nature of playing cards, there is a lot of magic possible that doesn’t require “sleights.” So Giobbi also published versions of the Card College that do not require sleight of hand. They are:

Card College Light: Professional Card Magic Without Sleight-of-Hand

Card College Lighter: More Professional Card Magic Without Sleight-of-Hand

Card College Lightest: Still More Professional Card Magic Without Sleight-of-Hand

So no matter what kind of card magician you want to be, you can make a great start with the Card College Series.

 

Coin Tricks: Your First Book

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Where do your learn coin tricks. Well, there are a lot of books you can start with on coin magic. But for decades, the answer to the question has been “Bobo!” That is short for Modern Coin Magic: 116 Coin Sleights and 236 Coin Tricks, by J. B. Bobo.

As dated as the book is, it does cover all the basics and then some.

You’ll get a strong foundation in coin magic with this book. Basically, there is very little in the coin magic world today that cannot trace its roots to something in Bobo.

Coin Tricks Yes, But Also The Mechanics to Do The Tricks

Everyone always talks about “coin tricks.” But you cannot do any trick unless and until you understand basic things like:

  • How to hold the coin(s):
  • How to transfer the coins from one place to another
  • Where to look (more important than you think), and more

Yes, there are dozens, probably hundreds of books and DVDs on coin magic. And we’ll talk about a lot of those. But really, you should – for the ten bucks it will cost you – get yourself a copy of Bobo’s. To get started doing just that, find out more about it at Amazon HERE.