Warning! This blog is sure to offend. Feel free to gently flame me to a crispy crunch in the comments section.
What's better for learning magic; books or DVDs? This debate rages on at places like the Magic Cafe and Penguin Magic Forums. The real winner of that debate is both books and DVDs. It all depends on your learning style. If you like books better, good for you. If you like DVDs better, like me, then I think that is just dandy!
Okay, enough of the fair and balanced crap. I am now going to bloviate from my highly opinionated brain matter. DVDs are really the better choice for most magicians, especially beginner to intermediate mages. And this is blog site is for beginners to intermediate mages. Don't fall victim to magic snobbery that would have you believe differently. Boldly put, I'm going to make the irrefutable case for DVDs over books.
Book Are Not Evil
I like books. I love books. There are a few good things about "classic" books. I'm specifically referring to the great tomes that have stood the test of time such as Royal Road to Card Magic. Many are relatively inexpensive and you get a lot of information. They can be taken places where a DVD isn't always practical or welcome - in bed with your wife or on the toilet for example.
Before the relatively recent invention of motion picture technology, there was one thing you could do with a book that you can't do with all the technology in the world; record the thoughts of the great masters that either lived before the ability to capture moving pictures or were just never captured on film or video. Magicians that now live only in legend can only be read about. Imagine if we had David Devant's Our Magic on DVD with him actually teaching us his methods? So much of the art that wasn't written down has been eternally lost.
But even the best books provide an inferior learning experience. Check out this seminal text from the description of the Overhand Shuffle from Royal Road to Card Magic by Jean Hugard and Frederick Braue:
"...seize the lower half with the right hand between the top phalanx of the thumb, at the middle of the inner end, and top phalanges of the middle and ring fingers at the middle of the outer end."
Say what? Prepare to spent a lot of time figuring out where your phalanges are in relationship to the deck! Okay, enough said about that patently inferior book technology.
DVDs Rule the World
Books are great reference materials but there is almost nothing you can do with book that you can't with a DVD. On the other hand, there are a LOT of things you can do with a DVD that you can't do with a book.
Keeping It Real
With DVDs you can observe real magicians performing real effects to real people, for real reactions, under real conditions and probably getting paid with real money! Usually you get a performance followed by a teaching session. You can watch the performance over and over to see the trick performed at speed and from the spectators view.
Lights, Camera, Action
DVD producers frequently film the instruction from multiple angles sometimes at the same time. The magician can perform the trick mulitple times at differing tempos. When viewing an actual magician you get a spactial representation that you cannot get from a photo or drawing. You can see the angles of the arms, legs and body as the move is demonstrated. You can observe the artful movements; a swish of a hand in an elegant manner as the body turns slightly to catch a good angle relative to the spectator.
The magician can also perform variations of the trick or routine - sure you can write about variations to a routine in a book with some success - but it's not easy to write or read. If you can't visualize one step of the literary interpretation you're pretty much hosed.
Lastly, you can slowdown, speed up, rewind, jump around to different chapters with the touch of a button. Put down that dog-eared text!
I've Got Rhythm
DVDs allow you to watch actions combined with timing and patter. Sorry but you can't effectively show timing with a book. Take Greg Wilson's Napkins Spongeball Routine from the On The Spot DVD. The performance shows Wilson repeatedly using misdirection on a spectator along with the clever vanish of the napkin balls during the "offbeat." Wilson confesses that he can't describe the maneuver using words. You could write a book on this technique but you would never learn it because you could never accurately describe the patter, eye contact, body position relative to the spectator, the arm and hand actions, the speed and the timing of the move.
Non-linear Thought
The thought process of writing is so different from the thought process of performing sleight of hand magic. There is no live person to react to in a book. There are no natural missteps that can be talked about and corrected. When you write a book, you've got to brake down so many little things into a linear set of steps.
The problem is that sleight of hand is not linear. You have multiple actions happening in concert to form an overall effect. When a magician authors a book or article on magic, the process takes him or her out of their element and into a flat, formless space.
I'm not suggesting we have a book burning. In fact, you'll get my Modern Coin Magic when you pry it from my cold, dead fingers. However, some people need not defend magic books as the only method of learning with such a religous zeal. Other than person to person, a good DVD will always be a better way of learning a new school of magic.
Flame away my friends!
