Big K,

I used to stutter. . . a lot. . .badly. I love that "relax and breathe" advise. But, hey, if you don't have the problem, you don't get it. You know the line, "Don't think about the pink elephant"? Yeah that always works.

Fortunately, my stuttering cleared up when I was about 20. It just stopped for some reason.

I think you need to bring the stuttering out and make it part of the act. What wierd magical accident happened to cause this? Bring it forward. Don't hide it. Have fun with it.

Mark

What can I Say?

I too had a bad stutter, unusually, it became worse in my late 20's during a nasty divorce and custody Battle. It still trips me up from time to time.

I echo a lot of the information given above. Most magicians talk too fast anyway, and slowing down will definately help. So will speach therapy, but I would say talk to, (or listen to!) someone who's been through the course.

For me, if I feel it coming on, I stick to the script and it always gets me through, I find that having practiced the script, It's almost like singing it. Also I practice the script out loud, and slowly. Maybe this is why It helps so much.

Finally. Cudos to Bob Sheets, who is no doubt a busy busy guy, but has still found time to make one of his only 2 postings so far on this subject.

Cheers

Andy

Ps I have a friend who can't pronounce his "F" sounds or "Th" sounds."................. Can't say fairer than that!

I've worked with many kids who stutter in my classes. Not being a stutter or a speech therapist, although I do work with one, I have noticed that stressful situations always increase the rate of the stutter.

I used to have
simmiler problems when I started of
but I over came them for tips on how to do that and more vist my site http://www.geocities.com/magic_cranford

Big K:

My best friend was a stammerer. He could not speak to anyone but me on the telephone. It was absolute excruciating torture for him to make any kind of phone call. Whenever he got tired or drunk, he had problems with stammering.

However, when he was singing or when he was doing a piece of magic, the stammering went away. He told me that it was because he knew what he was going to say when he was in those situations. He didn't have to worry about whether he was going to make a mistake. He knew what the next word was going to be.

Several speech pathologists I have worked with have told me the same thing.

Henry's stutter was caused by a lesion on his brain. There are also psychological reasons for stuttering. But you can use it to your advantage.

Imagine, for example, that you are getting ready to identify a card. So you turn it over and start to name it. But you stammer. And each time you stammer, you produce another one of the same card.

Make your perceived weakness into a strength.

I find that for some weird reason when I perform, I don't stutter, but in everday situations I do. Odd. Have you tried working from a script? That way you don't have to think about what to say next. I'm working my way up to being a dj for a radio station, and if I do live read off the top of my head, it's choppy and sounds funny, but if I read or already know what I"m going to say, it comes out find. Try that. Also, I know I stutter on certain words, so I work my patter around that. That's just me

Nolan

I used to stutter myself when I first started out in magic. It's something I believe comes naturally when you're nervous. However, as already mentioned in a post, I slowed down my pace, made my words clearer, and that way I gained tremendous amount of self confidence in myself.

If you stutter try performing with fun & intresting music!

Mark

I know this post is a little late, but John Stossel mentions a stuttering clinic in his recent book "Give Me A Break". Unfortunately I can't remember the name (and I borrowed to book from a buddy of mine). It'd be worth stopping by a bookstore and thumbing through it to find the name of the place. The clinic helped Stossel become a very well known television journalist.

Paul

This may be contraversial, but under hypnosis, people don't stutter. I trained under a local hypnotherapist when I was younger and saw this first-hand. The usual approach to cure stuttering by hypnosis is confidence building and relaxation techniques. The following links may be of interest to members with a stutter.

Click Here!

Click Here!

Practicing and being patient, magic could help you work through your stutter

Stuttering shouldn't hold you back. Lewis Carroll wanted to become a priest but was refused because he stuttered. His drive to discover and use vocabulary that wasn't affected by his stuttering led him to become a writer and he went on to write Alice in Wonderland. Winston Churchill, Issac Newton, Jimmy Stewart, ventriloquist & inventor Dr. Paul Winchell, and Marilyn Monroe were all stutterers. Paul Winchell's attempts to find ways of speaking without using the letters that inflamed his stuttering led to a brilliant entertainment career. Marilyn's breathy way of speaking was her method of controlling the speeh difficulty. Jimmy Stewart turned his stuttering into an instantly recognizable & marketable theatrical identity. Churchill, recognized as one of Parliament's greatest orators, would memorize each speech forward & backward and hum to himself before each speech to keep the vocal cords vibrating. Theodore Roosevelt, Senator John Glenn, Carly Simon, Mel Tillis, Mr. Bean's Rowan Atkinson, Bob Newhart, Bruce Willis, 20/20 Reporter John Stossel, NBC Sports Commentator Bill Walton, veteran actor James Earl Jones (Darth Vader's and CNN's voice) are all well-know stutterers who struggle daily to overcome the difficulty. I read that Bruce Willis insists on advance copies of all interviews...even for the talk show circuit...to prepare and prevent his stuttering from surfacing. And don't forget Porky Pig and South Park's Jimmy! Seems to me that, except for Jimmy, you're in pretty good company! It can be done. It takes work, planning and a conscious decision to move forward.

Oh yeah...add me to that list, as well. My case is mild until I get flustered or stressed, then my stuttering renders me almost speechless. Performing comedy and magic before large crowds has taught me the confidence and control needed to work past the stress and concentrate on the act. It was hard at first and I almost quit several times. Friends encouraged me and kept me going. I still lose it sometimes...I simply deadpan the audience...take an exaggerated breath...let it out in a slow hum...calm down...and move on at a rhythmic pace. The audience recognizes this and understands.

Hang in there, friend! You can do it!
:o) Skip

I'd say try a bit of everything and see what you feel most comfortable with. Try making a set that involves no vocals, ty one that emphasizes the stutter, try one that you reherse enough that there's no stutter, try one you can go through slowly enough to avoid the stutter. Whichever you feel works best for you, go with that. Maybe try the others from time to time (it isn't a good idea to get too stuck in a rut, and oyu might find the stutter problem diminishes when you get more confident in a crowd) and if you change whichone you prefer then go with the new one. Just experiment and go with what works best for you

I stuttered helplessly as a child. My brother and his kids still do to this day. At the time, long long ago, it was advised to have the affected child interact as much as possible with other children. I started pre-school at the ripe age of 2 1/2. By the time I got to the first grade I no longer stuttered and was quite the rattle mouth, a condition that still exists. When I am highly emotional or whenever I talk to someone that stutters I involuntarily slip into my old long forgotten stutter. Some people use a sing song rhythm to help and I've heard that repetition of rehearsed lines will help. Practice firing off lines like "Picka card, any card" or anything you will use.
The other option is if you can't beat 'em join 'em. Using the stutter in a comical fashion could slay. I would venture to think that using a stutter could be GREAT misdirection. When people hear a stutter they automatically devote a portion of their mind to getting to the end of your sentence before you. The more painful it appears on your part would only drag them farther into your web of deceit.