In 14 clearly organized lessons you will learn how to handle a deck of cards like a pro. And along the way you will acquire some amazing, yet simple card tricks, which will allow you to successfully perform a little card act for an audience.
- Lesson 1: Tools and Instruments
- Lesson 2: Getting Acquainted With Your Instrument
- Lesson 3: Your First Techniques: Basic Shuffles
- Lesson 4: Your First Card Trick: "The Mystery of the Triangle"
- Lesson 5: Ordinary Cuts
- Lesson 6: A Small Card Miracle: "The Cards Know"
- Lesson 7: More Auxiliary Sleights and Review
- Lesson 8: A Few Simple Flourishes
- Lesson 9: Audience Management: "The Open Prediction"
- Lesson 10: Creating a Program
- Lesson 11: Techniques Without Sleights
- Lesson 12: Three More Tricks
- Lesson 13: The History of the Cards and Some Famous Card Conjurors
- Lesson 14: Your Next Step
Over 150 color photos and 85 video clips. You must be connected to the Internet to view these, but you can use all other features off-line.
The course is written in an engaging style and goes far beyond teaching you sleight-of-hand and a few card tricks. Roberto Giobbi, who has been called by Eric Mead "one of our most important and influential contemporary writers and teachers in magic", will take you by the hand and tell you how to practice efficiently even if you have little time, what to do when you meet difficult spectators, how to best communicate with your spectators, how to avoid failure, how to get applause, how to use psychology and the knowledge of human nature in your magic to create true wonderment, and much, much more know-how that will give you a complete understanding of how to entertain with a normal deck of playing cards.
"It is the best beginning instructional course in card magic that I have ever seen! Sharing this new work of his is an example of Roberto Giobbi's generosity and enthusiasm for teaching magic. His guidance will take even a beginning hobbyist to an enjoyable and satisfying journey. With this sound foundation, you will be able to continue your studies on an even more advanced level in what has been called the 'poetry of magic.' There is much to learn about the performance of magic in this project that even seasoned performers will find rewarding." - Bill Evans
From the Introduction:
Genesis
In early 2012 I attended a youth congress in Germany where I gave several workshops on the
subject of card magic. I was very pleased at the interest and passion almost all youngsters displayed,
but I was also surprised, if not to say a bit shocked, at the discrepancy between the fairly advanced
material they were using and their personal artistic immaturity.
I've witnessed for the first time in its entirety and on a big scale what many of you already know,
namely that most of those joining magic nowadays do so over the Internet, having learned from
«tutorials» on YouTube and similar sources, and are doing some advanced magic, not always badly,
but completely lacking the basics in technique, presentation, and theory. They have started to build
the house, so to speak, on the third floor, and the slightest earthquake will bring it down, as it lacks a
fundamental support.
Although my previous works - the Card College and Card College Light, Lighter and Lightest
books and related DVDs - address the issue and provide a remedy, I'm told that the young generation
is used to getting information free from the web and don't even have the little money required to buy
the basic tools, both being admittedly debatable topics.
At about the same time I was approached by Pepe Monfort and Salva Pellicer from Magic Agora,
an on-line magic academy, to create an interactive, multi-medial basic course of card magic. This I
did and you can check it out on their site www.magicagora.com.
This is the electronic PDF version of it, a multimedia course in 14 lessons teaching the basics of
card magic with text, photographs, and film clips. This new project is dedicated to all newcomers to
magic, but I hope that it will also meet with the approval of my more experienced readers, because
they might find their own insights and experience put into hopefully well-structured and adequate
words.
Updated edition 2015, 157 pages, over 150 color photos and 85 video clips.
word count: 50459 which is equivalent to 201 standard pages of text
