The two effects are the Piano Trick and the Up or Down effect. I like both effects, but I think they could benefit from some creative patters. I'll describe the effect of both:

In the Piano Trick you have a spectator put their hands in a table as if they're playing a piano. Then you put a pair of card between each of their fingers, except that instead of the last pair you only use one card. You then put each pairs in two piles and ask them where they want to put the odd card. You cleanly put it where they want and order the cards to move around. They do. It's a very clean transposition effect, but I simply don't have a good patter idea for it. All I can think of is asking them to exchange some sort of "invisible card" or something like this.

In the Up or Down effect you start by putting two predictions face down in the table. Then you ask an spectator to take a packet of 20 shuffled black cards and place a red card anywhere in it and shuffling it again. You have two spectators memorize the cards that are above and below the red cards (or shuffle again if the red card is either the top or bottom card). You then show one of the spectator the cards while upjogging one, downjogging the next one, upjogging one, dowjogging the other and so on. You ask the spectator to pay attention if their cards is either "up or down". You do the same for the other spectator. After doing that you remove the red card from the packet and divide it in the middle, two packets of ten cards in the table. The predictions then point out the position of the thought-of-cards in the packet. You can use different predictions by slightly changing the procedure.

This effect sounds like it could get some nice reactions for me, but I think that it lacks a good motivation for the "up or down" procedure. All I can think of is using a multiple-out approach and showing that you managed to predict if their cards would be up or down, or saying something like "this means that there are exactly x up above / down below" depending on what they say their cards was (not sure if I could make that work in the case one was up and the other down). Or maybe a combination of either. If you use a paper with a prediction you could also eliminate the use of face-down cards as predictions. I really don't know, I'm kinda lost on how to present this one. I'm sure someone experienced could put this to good use if presented as a mental-type effect, but I'm not a great performer or good at handling effects. I think this would need a multiple-outs style approach and It would be simply perfect if you could have the prediction in clear view from the start (what's not possible with multiple outs, at least to my knowledge).

Both effects were shown to me by an aquaintance, so sorry if I can't cite any source. I believe the piano trick is due to T. Nelson Downs, but I have no clue who originated the Up or Down effect. I would be glad if anyone could provide a credit.

Any help will be appreciated. Thank you all very much.

EDIT: Also, sorry if this isn't in the right section. I wasn't really sure where this would belong to.

Magiconcio I'm going to give you one presentation for the piano trick that I came up with, but more importantly what I want to give you is a way to look at the components of a trick to help formulate presentations for them. The starting point for me in searching for a presentation is asking myself what's this trick is trying to do.

In looking at the trick I looked at it different angles, firstly at the total number of cards used in the trick (15) and asked myself is there any way that this number can have a measurable theme for my presentation?

In looking for answers to that question I delved into themes like numerology to see if any numbers had characteristics that could lend to an interesting presentation.

After exploring that idea for a while I looked into pairs of things as the trick requires you to hold pairs of cards between each finger. What symbolic or literal aspect of real life could I relate to this to and produce a theme?

There is also a transposition aspect which could be explored, maybe time travel, wormholes or something.

Looking at the trick from all it's aspects you can tease out every possible angle of potential theme well trying to be congruent to what the trick is trying to do.

Anyway here is what I settled on in the end:


You know being a magician one would think that we would have a reasonable tolerance for the mysterious and strange aspects of things, but I have to say as of recently everyday life has started to become rather peculiar to me for some reason.

For example why does an Escalator Handrail Move at a Different Speed from the Stairs? Why is a Bus Fare Always an Odd Number When It Requires Exact Change? Why does a caregiver and caretaker mean the same thing?

You can see that I'm all consumed with the most pressing issues of our lives, but those things can wait for another day.

The issue I wont to explore today is when I'm doing the washing I always seem to lose a sock. I don't know where it goes but it just seems to vanish and its counterpart just lingers around alone. So today we are going to do our very own episode of Mythbusters and conduct a little experiment.

Now since I don’t want to lose anymore socks we will recreate the circumstance of the socks disappearance with this deck of cards.

I’ll need your assistance for a moment and ask you to place each hand flat on the table.

Now I will place a pair of cards between the fingers of each of your hands except the very last one which will be our odd sock. The pairs represent a set of clothes, a shirt and a pair of pants.

Now there is one important step that has to be done before the washing begins, and that is we have to separate the whites from the coloreds. We don't want that white business shirt looking like a 5th grade tie dying experiment now do we?

I'll take the first pair (the magician separates the cards into two different piles), the second pair (the magicians continues calling the pairs until the single card is reached).

Now the moment of truth, where do I place the single sock, with the whites or the coloureds?

The coloureds! Ok

We will place the coloureds into our washing machine here and run a complete wash cycle (the magician places the chosen pile of cards in the card box and closes the flap giving the box a shake as if simulating the wash cycle).

DING! I think that sound means were done, let's have a look.

I will separate the cards into pairs until were out of cards, if the odd sock remains we should have one odd card left, if it has vanished we will end with no odd card (the magician proceeds with his actions).

We have an equal number of pairs with no odd card? How strange?

You haven't got it have you?

Hmmm...

Hang on a second; let's just check the white's pile that's still on the table.

HA! There it is I think we can officially say this mystery is busted.

Now that is just a little tongue in cheek presentation that I drummed up just by doing a little thinking and research, see if you can come up with something yourself for your second trick.

If you need help PM me.

Magically

Aus

Aus,

Thank you very much for your help! That's simply amazing, and not only the great presentation you came up with, but also the amazing insights you gave me about how to structurate my own effects! I will try to think something up for the second effect with the aid you gave me and I'll post it here as soon as I have it finished. It will probably take a little while, though!

Again, thank you very much!

Your most welcome Magiconio, if you need any help or would like me to go over anything for you I'm only a PM away.

Magically

Aus

Thanks Aus!

That’ would be a nice start to get into the socks trick with the odd socks cards