Sound advice...

On a forum I frequent I was asked by a younger performer for some advice on a way to present an effect.

"I'm doing a card change, one where the card changes in their hand (well that's what it looks like..)

I can't think of any patter that i feel works well for the situation. I tried it on a family member, saying that if you believe in something strongly enough you can make it happen. He said it sounded odd, and that the trick was great but the patter was weird."

I responded to him my thoughts on the subject and decided to share them with you folks here. I wrote a song about. Like to hear it? Here it goes:

"Well two things come to mind. You don't have to have a patter. Silence seems to bug magicians. If we aren't talking, we feel we're not performing. Quite untrue. Sometimes just focusing all attention on what we are doing and then doing it is more powerful than anything we can ever say.

You also don't need a Paul Harris type hook line like "If you imagine hard enuff, etc" Me personally I say things that match my lackadaisical style of presentation. Such as, "Is this your card? No (Waves hands card changes) how about now?"

So maybe no patter is needed. A card change isn't a water to wine miracle so it doesn't need a big huge dramatic build up. It should be a part or the end of a larger routine anyway."

We do seem to want to fill up every moment of our magic with ourselves. This often leaves little room for the magic. Sometimes, you just have to push your trick out of the nest and let it try to fly for it self. Sometimes it soars, sometimes it falls, and sometimes it gets sucked into the jet engine of a nearby airplane and is shredded into tiny bite sized snowstorm pieces.

You never know unless you try.

Bizzaro.