Tricks using color changes

[Guest]

Could anyone recommend a few standard tricks utilizing color changes? I have yet to come across a trick using more that a simple Erdnase. Many changes I have learned seem like great sleights to me, but I have never seen them used in a well justified manner. I can only blame my small collection of magical literature, but I want to fix that.

[Guest]

Dai Vernon's "Pick off Pip" in The Dai Vernon Book of Magic might fit what you're looking for. (I saw Vernon perform this where he added a bit to the end: after throwing the middle pip of the three to the table, he turned the deck face-down and did a Glide to remove the "two" from the deck, and then rubbed the face of the "two" against the pip on the table to "put it back on.")

Maybe someone else can provide a reference for this next effect, as I can't remember where I learned it or whose it was. You reveal, say, a six of clubs as the spectator's card. They tell you it was the nine, not the six. You say, "That is the nine. You're just looking at it upside down. Let me turn it right-side up." As the deck is rotated 180 degrees, the six on the face becomes the nine.

Actually, your question sounds a bit strange to me, since I think of a color change as a good effect in itself, rather than a good sleight in search of an effect...

[Guest]

Yes, but wouldn't the effect be so much better with some kind of justification or plot? Vernon's Cutting to Aces is a fine trick without patter, but the One-Armed Gambler story takes it to a new level. It's the difference between the performer being skilled with cards and real magic happening.

[Guest]

Jay Sankey has published MANY tricks using the Erdnase change to bring about diferent effects: some cleverly motivated.

I will flip through a few of his books tonight so I can list specifics...

[Guest]

John Carney has some nice work on motivated color changes in Carneycopia, a book every serious student should have even if he doesn't do color changes. I believe there's also a color change routine in The Book of Secrets as well. Get your name on John's list for when he reprints that book.

Jamy Swiss and Geoff Latta have a wonderful routine called "Point Blank" that is based on picking off the pip which includes several color changes, the pack turning blank and a flash appearance of the selection. I did it for a few years after it appeared in one of the NYMagic Symposium books but it's fallen out of my practice routine and it's not something you should do if you don't practice it all the time.

David Acer has a nice effect called "Changes" on his (highly recommended) video Extreme Close-Up. It's within the reach of most intermediate workers.

Those are all the come to mind at the moment.

[Guest]

--and we're back:
One of Jay Sankey's talents is envisioning new uses for "classic" moves.

He has many many clever ideas about the bill switch, for example.

Similarly, as mentioned above, he has many tricks using the Erdnase change, where the card doesn't necessarily change (from say, a 4H to a 8C) but with the requisite wave of your hand, something happens to a drawing, or a signature on the card.

--To my chagrin I could only find one such effect in the Sankey books I have at hand; from "Sankey Unleashed": "Fragile Harbor"--I can't tell the effect w/o unlawfully giving it away, but it is a changing-picture effect...I KNOW there are other examples out there.
;)

--Didn't somebody say a color change was about the single most magical thing you could do? Was that Vernon?

[Guest]

Gee this is a huge topic. Our Tom Wolf invented a real stunner where four coins appear on top of a tabled deck. I offered a minor touch on that item where you put a silver dollar on the deck and with a wave of the hands it becomes four quarters. And that's just a glint off the tip of the iceberg.

Going further back in our literature we find gems like Leipzig's Slap Aces. The diligent student will of course have discovered and explored the obvious variation of the Robert-Houdin changing deck routine and similar applications using the Svengali principle.

Going in another direction the student is well advised to check out The Cavorting Aces and an exploration on that theme from Darwin Ortiz using the 10s from his early works and it's descendants in our literature.

Others have used a color change to announce the magical transition in the Triumph and Oil and Water routines.

And then we could close the loop of this tour getting back to that fun Bob Driebeek trick called Toscheroon(sp) where you put a coin on the face up tabled deck and make the face card change. :)

Enjoy

[Guest]

Hi Jon,
It is nice to be remembered..

At the same time that I created the 4 gold coins,(they where gold plated at that time, 30 years ago), I also do the routine in which 2 silver dollars. I have never shown the dollar version to anyone. I was saving it for a special occasion to use in a routine.

The reason that I created this was...I always had to reach into my vest pocket to remove my coins to start my show.

I thought that there had to be a better way and this is the result.

When I showed it to Eddie Marlo, Paul Swinford and Larry Pringle, they loved it and kept the secret for some time.

As you know, secrets leak and others lay claim to what you have created.

My best to you.

I am leaving this Saturday for my last home in Florida.

Tom Wolf

[Guest]

Two excellent effects that I constantly use that utilize color Changes are Dan and Dave Buck's Swiss Made/Greek Time Machine, which is their FACE-UP variation of Steve Freeman's classic Time Machine effect.

And Syd Segal's Thank You LePaul, which has become one of my favorite Four Ace effects of all time. I believe there are 4 "changes" involved in this effect.

Thank You LePaul can be found in Syd Segal/JC Wagner's "Full Metal Jacket".

Swiss Made/Greek Time Machine can be found in "The Trilogy" and "Sleightly Magical".

And Probably the most standard effect using a color change is where you have a card selected, control it, perform a DL and then do an Erdnase change.

Hope this helped!

[flynn]

How about tips on executing the move. I cant seem to just simply wave my hands doing the move like Bill Malone does it. So I have just been doing slap changes and Erdnase which don't look as magical. I've been practicing plenty I'm starting to think my hands just aren't right for it.

[Richard Kaufman]

Leaving a palmed card on the face of the deck without it appearing that you are putting it there is extremely difficult. It takes a LOT of practice. You need to find someone who can teach you this in person.

[George Olson]

Jerry Andrus has some great work with the sidewinder shift for changes.

GO

[Thomas Van Aken]

How about tips on executing the move. I cant seem to just simply wave my hands doing the move like Bill Malone does it.

Hello Flynn,

Can you point the Bill Malone reference you mention ?

Thanks in advance and best regards

Thomas

[Richard Kaufman]

I published an excellent routine by Tony Giorgio based entirely around color changes in the issue of Genii in which he appears on the cover. Also, the routine is performed and explained on his 2-DVD set which came out recently, Ultimate Work (Handmucking).

[flynn]

The routine I saw Malone do all the color changes was in his "Direct from the Factory" routine. He does like four color changes in that routine. It's from L&L I think. And as luck would have it I have that May 03 issue Tony Giorgio issue with the Essay on the color change dediated to Nate Leipzig. Thanks for pointing that out Mr. Kaufman. It explains everything I needed, to help me with what I needed help with.

[Chris Bailey]

I believe the routine where the 6 is turned into a 9 (using Steve Draun's Midnight Shift) is in Eric Martin's booklet if I'm not mistaken.

[Doug Conn]

I humbly recommend 'Pip Trip' from "Tricks of My Trade - Magic of Doug Conn' (Paul Cummins - Fasdiu press, www.fasdiu.com)

Pip Trip is a 'motivated' color change sequence (repairing a defective card) that uses a (triple change) handling of the Erndase change (and a couple other standard change/moves)

[Green Skittle]

I believe the routine where the 6 is turned into a 9 (using Steve Draun's Midnight Shift) is in Eric Martin's booklet if I'm not mistaken.

There is also a version of this in Carneycopia, I think.

[Frank Yuen]

I believe the routine where the 6 is turned into a 9 (using Steve Draun's Midnight Shift) is in Eric Martin's booklet if I'm not mistaken.

I think that's Eric Maurin and the booklet's title is Secrets .

[Leonard Hevia]

Nonsense, Flynn. Max Malini had tiny hands, and executed color changes that were purportedly flawless. John Carney has excellent advice on color changes in his text Secrets.
Carney's DVDs on this text can also be of help. The Erdnase Change does look magical in the right hands. Watch the Dai Vernon Spirit of Magic documentary and you will understand how it's supposed to look.

[Jonathan Townsend]

There's a cute trick in "The Ramsay Legend" where you change the face card twice and have a feint to cover any hesitation on the card droppage ;)