With tens of thousands of magic tutorial videos on YouTube, this article will help you sift through the endless amateur videos and learn professional magic tricks and effects from some of magic’s newest innovators.
Nobody can deny the influence that YouTube has had on the Internet. With more than 800 million unique users per month and approximately 60 hours of video uploaded every minute, YouTube uses as much bandwidth each year as the rest of the Internet combined. If you search, you’ll find videos on just about everything imaginable and tutorials on tens of thousands of different topics, magic not the least of them.
Due to the secrecy that surrounds magic and the practice and performance of magic tricks, the videos on YouTube that attempt to reveal these secrets are endless. Search for ‘easy magic tricks’ or ‘magic tricks tutorials’ and the results will be in the tens of thousands. Unfortunately, the quantity far outweighs the actual quality. The number of young and/or inexperienced video posters probably outnumbers the good ones by at least fifty to one.
This brings us back to our original question… can you really learn magic from YouTube?
First of all, I’m not going to get into the moral and philosophical question of whether or not magic tutorials should be posted on YouTube. The videos are there… and they are NOT going away. Second, many of the videos show effects and variations of effects and techniques that are readily available in classic magic publications and can be obtained by anyone with a library card or credit card and Internet access. I’m not going to go into copyright vs. Neither is the public domain. If a tutorial is copyrighted material, then the copyright owner can request that the material (video) be removed.
That said, let’s assume that the videos we’re talking about are legal and/or original.
I have personally discovered several magical YouTube channels that regularly post featured tutorials. If you want to learn card magic, card tricks, and both mental and mathematical magic card tricks, you can learn enough awesome magic to keep you busy for months. The same goes for magic with paper, silks, matches, dice, balloons, birds, coins, magnets, glass bottles, and many other forms of magic.
There are also ideal magic categories of street magic, parlor magic, and strolling magic. Exploring YouTube will reveal tricks and effects you won’t find in print.
As diverse as the subject, the big drawback of YouTube is the time limit. Since most videos are limited to ten minutes or less, all the nuance and detail that makes an effect magical is usually missing. This is the argument for magic books, extended DVDs, and tutoring. Some things just can’t be taught in a matter of minutes.
Although I am a fan of learning methods that offer me the greatest chance of success, I cannot ignore YouTube. There is simply too much material, too much original thinking and ideas, and too many video tutorials for you to choose from to stream this endless array of resources.
If you want to discover the best that YouTube has to offer, search for “magic tricks tutorials” and “card tricks tutorials”. Also, google the ‘best youtube magic tricks channels’.