Memories Are Made Of This
Let’s start with something you can try out on yourself or on your friends. Below is a list of thirty things. Please read them once (or better yet get someone else to read them to you) and try and commit as many of them as you can to memory. Do not write anything down and try to avoid using any memory tricks that you may have learnt. You should take no more then about a minute to read the list. Have a break for a minute or two and then on a separate sheet of paper write down as many of the objects as you can from memory, without looking back at the list. I’ll still be here when you get back from doing that.
Memory List
- Knife
- Carpet
- Window
- Door
- Chair
- Shoe
- Michael Jackson
- Fork
- Socks
- Shirt
- Thumb-tip
- Book
- Pants
- Plate
- Chair
- Pen
- Spoon
- Pencil
- Table
- Cup
- Death
- Glass
- Chair
- Bed
- Carpet
- Scissors
- Chair
- Watch
- Keys
- Bottle
Welcome back. What was the point of all that? Well, presuming that we want to have our magical performances remembered it makes sense to find out what makes something memorable (or forgettable).
How did you do in the memory test? Provided that you did not get thirty (and if you did then go back and read the bit about not cheating!), look at the objects you did remember. The chances are good that they will include most if not all of the following:
- Michael Jackson
- Thumb-tip
- Chair
- Knife
- Bottle
- Death
Each one is an example of one of the six major factors have been found by researchers to make an event memorable.
The six factors affecting memory are outlined below:
- Unusualness
- Relevance
- Repetition
- Primacy
- Recency
- Emotion
Michael Jackson should thus be remembered because he is only person in a list of objects and is therefore unusual (in more ways than one!). The thumb-tip should be remembered because it is relevant to most magicians. ‘Chair’ should be remembered through repetition as it appears four times in the list. The concept of primacy means that ‘knife’ should be remembered because it comes first in the list. Similarly, the concept of recency means that ‘bottle’ should be remembered because it comes last in the list. Finally, ‘death’ should be remembered since it is a word that is usually triggers some form of emotion.
Thanks to some eager researchers we now have six ways in which we can make our magic more memorable. It makes sense that many of Michael Ammar’s “Eight Principles for Making Magic Memorable” from “The Magic of Michael Ammar” work by increasing one of the six factors listed above. Theory only becomes really useful when put into practice, so let’s look at how to each of the six factors can be applied to your magic to make it more memorable.
Unusualness
Thankfully, the impossible is by its very nature unusual, so as magicians we already have a head start in this area! If the unusual is more memorable than the usual, it follows that that we should make our performances as unusual or as incongruous with everyday life as possible. However, care must be taken so that your trick is not so unusual that it becomes irrelevant – for example, a bill which increases in value when folded is unusual but still relevant to spectators’ lives, whereas a bill which turns into an orange when folded is more unusual but less relevant. Just because our magical effects should be as unusual as possible, this does not mean that we should use the most unusual props or costumes, as this can draw attention towards them and away from the magic, which should remain the central focus of our performances.
This also leads to the conclusion that any effect which involves a transformation should involve an object becoming more unusual rather than less. It is more memorable, for example, to take a normal coin and magically bend it than to take a bent coin and magically straighten it.
The most unusual event is that which is unique, which explains why seemingly unanticipated and unexpected magic events which could only occur once (even if they are designed to occur that every night) are often the best remembered, and should be nurtured.
Relevance
The role of relevance in making tricks memorable helps to explain why magic which occurs in the spectator’s hands, or on their person, often has the most impact. It explains why doing magic with their belongings, their thoughts, or any other way which involves them is so powerful and so well remembered.
Relevance is still under-used in magic, especially when it can be so easily exploited when performing close-up magic. Why make a card disappear and reappear in your pocket when you can have it appear in theirs? Why make an ‘X’ jump around and multiply on the backs of playing cards when you can have their name jump around and multiply? Why read their mind and tell them which word they chose from a dictionary when you can read their mind and tell them the name of the first person they kissed?
Closely related to the idea of relevance is the idea of relevant implications. Whilst gambling routines generally leave me cold, they can be memorable because of their real-world implications, as someone who can always win at cards could make a lot of money at casinos. Similarly, demonstrations of mind-reading which are tedious to watch can still be memorable because of their relevant implications, as everyone has wished at some time or another that they could read minds. The appeal of the Hundred Dollar Bill Switch also stems from this factor. This links in with Dai Vernon’s question “What would you do if you could really do magic?” which should be a major starting point in developing new magic tricks. There is more discussion about implications in Darwin Ortiz’s classic book “Strong Magic”.
As well as associating your magic with the real world, you should also associate the real world with your magic. Magic remains a relatively esoteric subject and so unless people are discussing the paranormal or other magicians, then you may not be discussed. Memory works by making associations between related things, in a similar way to word-association games or the links between websites. Consequently, if you want you and your magic to be thought about and talked about more then you need to connect the outside world to your magic in as many different ways as possible. Darwin Ortiz says in “Strong Magic” that he wants to “make such a strong impression on each spectator that whenever the subject of card tricks or card cheating comes up in the future – indeed, virtually any time he sees a deck of cards – he’ll think of me”. This is a great goal, but it could be extended. In my experience people who are not magicians or gamblers do not think or talk about card tricks or card cheating all that frequently. Ian Rowland, author of “The Full Facts Book of Cold Reading”, suggests that people are far more concerned with issues concerning love, money, their career and their health, with travel, education and ambitions also praying on peoples’ minds. There is an easy way to tell what normal people tend to talk and think about most frequently – spend time with them. Talk to them, listen to them, question them, eavesdrop on their conversations and peer over their shoulders at what they choose to read. Listen carefully when people start recalling magic or anything else and see what aspects they remember and what they don’t, and then try to link your magic to these issues.
As well giving away magical souvenirs, two other ways to jog the memories of your audience are magical solutions to common problems and the use of music in magic. Following a well-crafted performance of a magical solution, people should be reminded of you whenever they experience the common problem (“if only I could magically fix this like <insert magician’s name>”). The use of music, even though it is harder (but not impossible) to inject into close-up performances, is also a relatively easy way to form strong associations between the outside world and your magic. Any one who needs convincing of this need only listen to people requesting songs on the radio – they will often say “please could you play <insert song> because it reminds me of when…”. Why not harness this associative power to have radios around the world promote your magic for free?!
Repetition
Why is the Ambitious Card such a popular trick? It can hardly be that the idea of a card rising to the middle of the pack to the top is inherently fascinating for spectators. Repeat this a few times, however, and you have a classic magical effect. I propose that it is the repetition which makes the trick memorable. Repetition is especially strong for magicians as most spectators have heard that magicians will never repeat a trick. This means that when a magician does repeat a trick, he takes advantage of the unusualness as well as repetition.
As with anything, if repetition is overused then a trick can become monotonous – we have all sat through performances of the six-card-repeat that seemed to go on forever. It is here that an analogy to the use of campaigns in advertising may be useful. Since advertisers want to use repetition to their advantage but don’t want people getting bored they produce numerous adverts which present the same message in different ways. A good example is the campaign for Altoids, which shows lots of different things which are “curiously strong”. Applying this idea to magic gives us a way to use repetition without tricks becoming boring. Daryl’s ambitious card is a good example of a ‘campaign trick’. Although the card rises to the top something like fourteen times, each time is slightly different in terms of the number of cards used, who’s hands the cards are in, and how strict the conditions are under which the card rises to the top. Another example could be the multiple selection routines favoured by bar magicians like Doc Eason. In his routine, almost every card is found in a different way, so the repetition does not become monotonous.
You might wonder how I can say that repetition can be a good thing and at the same time be against most multi-phase routines. I should clarify my position by saying that I am only against multi-phase routines when the phases are too different from each other to be able to quickly summarise the trick, as in many tricks with multiple climaxes. In the case of routines using repetition, they remain easy to summarise (e.g. a card rises to the top of the pack) it just happens multiple times. The distinction is small but important one.
Repetition is not appropriate in every routine but as long as each phase is different enough to avoid monotony whilst remaining similar enough to be easily summarised it turn an average trick into a highly memorable one.
Primacy & Recency
I will deal with these two factors at the same time as they are two sides of the same coin. Simply put, people will remember what they experience first and last, so place your best material first and last. This is by now standard advice on routining. It also questions the need for tricks with a lengthy midsection as this is less likely to be remembered, though if it is very entertaining and magical then you may want to keep it in. I would add that it is a good idea to emulate stand-up comedians by mentioning your name at the very beginning and the very end of your set to help cement it in their memory.
Emotion
The experience of amazement can be an emotional experience in itself, as can mind-reading, especially when it concerns an emotive memory. Other than in those instances, most magic performers, with the possible exception of Rene Lavand, do not spend a lot of time making their magic an emotional experience. This is not necessarily a bad thing, as you still have the other five principles to play with, but emotional experiences can be very memorable. Just think of losing your virginity or losing a loved one and you will probably experience quite a vivid memory of the occasion.
If you do want to make your magic an emotional experience, then I would suggest that it is a lot easier to tap into readily developed emotion then to try and create your own from scratch. We have all heard painfully trite performances by magicians trying to make watching card tricks a heart-rending experience (“the jack of spades will represent a young rogue and the queen of hearts will represent a shy damsel…”). It is better to use adapt existing stories and symbolic imagery which already strike an emotional cord, or better still to use peoples’ own stored emotions to your advantage. To re-use the mind-reading example from the section on relevance, why not (via a centre tear, impression device or by cold reading) tell people about their first kiss, their marriage day, the birth of their children, or any other event which is likely to be packed full of positive emotions waiting to be unleashed, as well as being highly relevant to the spectator?
That concludes our discussion of the six factors which can help to make your magic more memorable. The factors can and should be applied to every magic trick you perform.
As an intriguing footnote, Tony Buzan in his book “Use Your Memory” sets out twelve factors that can improve memory, which are listed below. Although they were developed to make memory pegs more memorable, you could just as easily use them to make your magic tricks more memorable, in a similar way to the six factors discussed above.
- senses
- movement
- association
- sexuality
- humour
- imagination
- number
- symbolism
- colour
- order and/or sequence
- positive images
- exaggeration
