Module 5- Part 6: PLOP
Benji
PLOP
Here’s a perfect example of the kind of innovation with the memorized deck that, I feel, pushes it to new heights…
This is called the ‘Quartet’ principle, and we owe its discovery to German maestros Pit Hartling and Denis Behr.
It first appeared in Denis Behr’s ‘Handcrafted Card Magic’ (see ‘Plop’), and later again in Pit Hartling’s ‘In Order to Amaze.’
When I first saw the explanation for this idea, I realized it was something special—and that no course on the memorized deck would be complete without it.
Fortunately for all of us, Pit was gracious enough to give me permission to use this concept as I saw fit in this project.
So, let’s dive into it…
What’s going on with ‘Quartets?’
By now, we should all be well aware that memorizing a deck means we know the position of any named card.
We’ve also seen how, when two cards are selected, we can creatively think of magical ways to reveal them.
This requires nimble thinking and being able to work out the distance between the two cards.
But what if we could do the same thing, with FOUR cards—and have the whole thing be EASIER?
Welcome to Quartets.
The basic premise of the Quartet principle is that we memorize, in advance, the distance number between each value in each Four of a Kind.
We can then do all kinds of magical revelations of those cards without needing to do any mental calculations or counting procedures.
Indeed, it becomes fast and easy to navigate to each card at will.
Now, I know what you’re going to say, so let me beat you to it:
Yes, this involves more memorizing.
But here’s the cool part…
We can use the very same method as we did in Module 1 to make memorizing these distance numbers a breeze.
In fact, you can use the EXACT same list! This is just a ‘freebie’ now that we’ve learned the Babylon secret.
Furthermore, we only need to memorize ONE image per quartet.
That’s because each Quartet only consists of three numbers—NOT four.
How so? Aren’t we dealing with 4 cards?
If my understanding of ‘Four of a Kind’ serves me correctly, yes, we are. However, we only need to remember three distance numbers.
For example, in the Tamariz stack, the four 7s are in the following positions:
3, 37, 41, 47.
Let’s look at the distances.
3 -> 37 = 34
37 -> 41 = 4
41 -> 47 = 6
So for the 4s, our distance numbers are ‘35’, ‘4’ and ‘6’.
Just three numbers.
That’s because, when we’re finding the first 7—we already know the distance number. It’s the 3rd card down. Nothing extra needs to be memorized for that.
But that example can be ‘optimised’ even further.
Notice how we seem to have an awfully large gap between the ‘3’ and the ‘37.’
Consider what might happen if we cut the deck so that the second 7 (the 7S, in position 37) became the new top card.
The new distances are:
37 -> 41 = 4
41 -> 47 = 6
47 -> 3 = 8 (47 to 52, then to 3)
See how ‘4’, ‘6’ and ‘8’ are far more manageable than numbers like 34?
With this setup, we’d be able quickly and easily jump from each card to the other in mere moments (rather than studiously counting 34 cards from one hand to the other—or even more laughably, trying to count 34 cards using a pinky count.)
Now, we understand that to optimise the Quartet, we can cut the deck so a different value comes first. It doesn’t need to necessarily be the very top card—it just needs to be the first card of that value to appear in the stack.
So for each Four of a Kind, there’s one card of that value which we want to be the closest to the top for the numbers to work as effectively as possible. That card is shown by the (suit) marking before the numbers.
Now that you know how to read the chart, I’ll show you the numbers for the Tamariz and Aronson stacks as provided by Pit and Denis (and then we can get into memorizing).
Tamariz:
Aces: (Diamonds) – 4, 8, 8.
Twos: (Hearts) – 8, 9, 8.
Threes: (Clubs) – 8, 9, 7.
Fours: (Spades) – 2, 11, 4.
Fives: (Hearts) – 8, 9, 5.
Sixes: (Clubs) – 8, 9, 8.
Sevens: (Spades) – 4, 6, 8.
Eights: (Hearts) – 8, 7, 4.
Nines: (Clubs) – 8, 9, 8.
Tens: (Clubs) – 10, 4, 11.
Jacks: (Hearts) – 12, 4, 9.
Queens: (Diamonds) – 2, 15, 2.
Kings: (Clubs) – 8, 5, 4.
One last example of how to read the above chart:
For the Fours, we want to cut the deck so that the Four of Spades (as shown by the (Spades) marking) is the first Four in the stack.
As you can see, the Twos, Threes, Fives, Eights, Tens, Jacks, and Kings don’t require any changes—the first card is the one that’s already first in the stack.
Here’s the same chart, but for the Aronson stack.
Aronson:
Aces: (Spades) – 4, 8, 4.
Twos: (Spades) – 10, 5, 9.
Threes: (Hearts) – 10, 7, 16.
Fours: (Hearts) – 2, 6, 8.
Fives: (Clubs) – 9, 8, 7.
Sixes: (Hearts) – 5, 5, 11.
Sevens: (Diamonds) – 4, 6, 3.
Eights: (Hearts) – 15, 7, 7.
Nines: (Hearts) – 5, 5, 5.
Tens: (Spades) – 21, 3, 3.
Jacks: (Clubs) – 1, 2, 17
Queens: (Diamonds) – 5, 22, 2.
Kings: (Hearts) – 13, 11, 12.
In this instance, the Aces, Threes, Fours, Fives, Sevens, Tens, and Queens don’t require any adjustments to the stack.
And, just because I’m so nice, I made you a list with the numbers for Aragon and Redford stacks.
Aragon:
Aces: (Diamonds) – 4, 4, 8.
Twos: (Diamonds) – 4, 8, 4.
Threes: (Diamonds) – 8, 4, 10.
Fours: (Clubs) – 2, 2, 2.
Fives: (Clubs) – 12, 4, 6.
Sixes: (Clubs) – 4, 12, 4.
Sevens: (Clubs) – 4, 4, 4.
Eights: (Clubs) – 5, 14, 4.
Nines: (Clubs) – 3, 18, 4.
Tens: (Clubs) – 13, 10, 4.
Jacks: (Diamonds) – 13, 14, 4.
Queens: (Spades) – 3, 22, 1.
Kings: (Diamonds) – 5, 5, 13.
In this case, the Aces, Twos, Threes, Fours, Fives, Sixes, Sevens, Eights, Nines, Queens and Kings won’t need any adjustments.
Redford:
Aces: (Spades) – 11, 10, 12.
Twos: (Clubs) – 1, 18, 11.
Threes: (Diamonds) – 8, 15, 7.
Fours: (Diamonds) – 11, 10, 12.
Fives: (Hearts) – 12, 9, 9.
Sixes: (Clubs) – 8, 15, 12.
Sevens: (Diamonds) – 10, 11, 10.
Eights: (Spades) – 12, 11, 7.
Nines: (Hearts) – 8, 15, 14.
Tens: (Clubs) – 10, 11, 10.
Jacks: (Spades) – 10, 12, 13.
Queens: (Hearts) – 13, 13, 10
In this case, the Aces, Threes, Fours, Sixes, Nines, and Queens don’t need any adjustments.
If you’re using some niche stack that no one else knows, you’ll have to make this list yourself. But, as Pit points out, that’s quite easy—just look for which card as the ‘first’ card makes the distance the smallest, and then count the distance between the cards.
Alright. Now that we have the lists, let’s look at how to memorize them using the exact same PAO system we went over in Module 1.
We’re going to need a memory palace with 13 rooms (4 less than usual.)
We’re going to store the distance numbers for each value, from Ace through King, in each of these rooms.
The Aces will be in the first room, the Twos in the second room, and so on.
In each room, we’ll only need to place ONE image and we’ll have encoded the Quartets.
First, we need to pick a stack.
For this demonstration, we’ll use Tamariz.
Starting with the Aces, we enter the first room of our memory palace.
Now, we create an image.
How?
We use the SUIT in brackets to tell us which category of image to create. For example, we recall that Diamonds are businessmen, Hearts are T.V. characters, Clubs are movie characters, and Spades are magicians/athletes. The first distance number is going to form our Person, the second will form our Action, and the third will form our Object.
For the Aces, we start with the Diamonds suit. Now, we look at the first distance number. It’s a 4.
So we’re going to use the PERSON from the 4D. In my case, that’s a man called Dan Kennedy (although you may have swapped that out for someone more familiar.)
The second distance number is 8. This is what we’ll use for the ACTION. The Action for my 8 of Diamonds is ‘slumbering’.
The third distance number is 8 again. It doesn’t matter that we’ve already used the 8, because we’re going to be using the OBJECT, which is separate from the action. The Object for my 8 of Diamonds is a ‘cave.’
So for the distance number for the Aces, I would imagine Dan Kennedy (P) slumbering (A) in a cave (O).
The wonderful thing about this is, since you already put in all the work in Module 1, the associations should be fast and easy when you go back into your memory palace and go from the images to the numbers.
Now, this is what I would use for PRACTICE only. Use this system until the images fall away and you just remember the numbers.
I would then continue and do the same thing for each value—assigning each one a subsequent room in my memory palace and forming an image for it.
A couple of notes:
You might end up reusing parts of images for different distance numbers. That’s fine. For example, in Tamariz, my image for the Threes and Sixes would be similar. For the Threes, I would have an image of Hiccup boomeranging potatoes. For the Sixes, I would
Recalling the second won’t stop me being able to recall the first! If I was trying to memorise the list under timed conditions, it might pose a problem, but we have as much time as we like to make sure we know the distinctions.
You’ll also occasionally come across numbers that are higher than 13, and so we can’t use any of our preexisting images. You have two options here:
- Just turn that number into the Action (for example, bouncing on a balloon shaped like the number 15)
- Create a new POA image for the number, and slot that in (for example, I might decide that 15 = Harry Potter (P) Drinking (A) Pumpkin Juice (O) )
Now that we know the lists, and we know how to memorize them, let’s look at some applications…
Before we get into anything too complex, here’s one of the most basic, yet effective:
- Force a Four of a Kind
Since we know where each card in the Four of a Kind is, we can (without looking at the faces) spread and locate them—and then force them.
We could do this in a couple of ways:
- Have someone name a value. We then cut so that the ‘first’ card of the Quartet is near the top and glimpse the bottom card so we know exactly where. We can then spread and force the first card, count the first distance number and force the second card, and so on. (using the classic force).
NOTE: how do you count between the cards?
Fortunately, Denis has thought about that too, and suggests either referencing ‘Counting Cards while spreading them between the hands’ in Card College 3, pg 501, or using Elmsley ‘3-3-2-2’ counting procedure (see the brief explanation of this in Module 4’s ‘Fingertip Fumbles.’)
Of course, if the classic force isn’t your thing, you can still do a similar thing. Here’s how I might force the Fours in the Tamariz stack:
- Start by cutting the 4S to the top. Perform the cross-cut force, and let the spectator remove the card.
- I know the next Four is another 2 cards away. Using a pinky count, I’m going to count 1 card and get a break above the Four (if I was to pinky count 2 cards, my break would be BELOW the Four).
- I now cut the cards so my break is in the middle of the deck. I then perform a riffle force, letting them remove the top card—the second Four. I place the left hand packet on top of the right, resetting the stack.
- I know that the next Four is 11 cards away, so I’m going to EITHER pinky count 10 cards and get a break about the 11th card OR use the 3-3-2-2 spread to spread 10 cards and get a break above the 11th card. I then can do the same force as before.
- Finally, I know the last Four is 4 cards away, so I can either pinky count 3 cards and catch a break above it, and do the riffle force again OR pinky count 4 cards and catch a break below, cut it to the middle and do the dribble force.
- Reveal that each of the spectators picked the named value in whatever way you please.
Of course, you could adapt the above idea based on your preferences, but I put it in to demonstrate that you can use the distance numbers for forces without JUST relying on the classic force.
Now that we have one of the more basic applications covered, let’s look at a couple more intriguing effects using the Quartets.
Effect: Ambitious Quartet
First, here’s a routine I devised based on the Quartet arrangement and a mighty convenient property of the Tamariz stack.
Effect:
The spectator selects a card. You try to perform the Ambitious Card, but you keep getting thwarted by some pesky Kings. You remove the Kings, but to no avail. Finally, you reveal that the Kings you removed have transformed into a Four of a Kind in the value the spectator selected!
Or at least, that’s what it looks like is about to happen, but at the last moment, it looks like you’ve messed up again—the selected card is nowhere to be seen. Then you reveal that the selected card has jumped to the top of a deck that was placed aside to begin with!
The method:
Here’s a more indepth walkthrough of what’s going on here. First of all, we’re in Mnemonica stack. The only alteration we make to the stack is removing the 9H and cutting the 5H to the bottom.
The spectator selects a card.
Actually, we force the 5H by cutting it to the centre of the deck, holding a break below it, and using a dribble force. We can get them to sign it at this point, if we want to.
As we display the 5H on the face of the right hand packet, we use our knowledge of the distance numbers for the 5s to pinky count to the next 5. In this case, the distance number from the 5H to 5S is 8. However, we’re just going to count 7, because we want our break to be ABOVE the 5, not below.
Now we replace the right hand packet on the left, maintaining the break. We now double undercut to the break—bringing the 5S to the top. We can throw in some false shuffles here.
Now we act like we’re launching into a presentation of the Ambitious Card, as we talk about how we can make their card rise to the top of the deck.
In fact, when we turn over the top card after our magical gesture, instead of the spectator’s selection, it’s the King of Clubs.
Really, what we’re doing here is a double lift. The KC is below the 5S in the stack.
(actually, the 9H is below the 5S—but we already removed this. If you prefer to not mess with the stack, you’d need to do a triple lift here.)
Immediately, we sigh as if we just recalled something annoying yet not entirely unexpected (the same sigh you might give after realizing you should have taken the keys out of the car before you shut the door.)
We say (and of course, these lines can be swapped out for ones more relevant to you)…
“My mistake. I always forget to take out the King of Clubs before I do this.”
(then, as an aside to a spectator on our left)
“He’s very jealous, you know. He hates it when a different card tries to get ‘one-up’ on him!”
(addressing the rest of the audience)
“I’ll remove the King and try again.”
We place the King on the table.
Actually, we place the 5S on the table, thanks to our previous double lift. However, to the audience it appears we’ve discarded the King.
We now spread the deck in our hands and look at it.
“Of course, that means your card is still in here somewhere.”
What we’ve actually done here is count the next distance number. Usually that number is 9, but since we removed the 9H, it’s 8. And since we want to catch a break ABOVE the card, rather than below, we just count 7. We can do this with the Elmsley 3-3-2-2 count, adapting it to 3-2-2.
(or if it gels better, use the pinky count again.)
(also – if you opted for the triple lift and kept the 9H in, you’ll count 8).
We can display there is no King on top or bottom at this point, then do the same as before—double undercutting the next 5 to the top, and false shuffling as if starting over.
(alternatively, we could just go straight into the double undercut without displaying.)
We turn over the new top card after a magical gesture and freeze when we realize it’s now the King of Diamonds.
(it might be appropriate for a few beads of sweat to break out on our forehead at this moment.)
Again, this is easily accomplished via a double lift—the KD is below the 5D in the stack.
We say:
“But of course…the King of Diamonds is also very spiteful. I should have removed him too.”
We place the King on the table.
Again, we’re actually placing the 5 on the table, thanks to our double lift.
“I do apologize. I usually remove all the Kings when I’m performing. They’re too unpredictable!”
We proceed in the same manner as before, a little more hurriedly, as if we’re anxious for this whole thing to be over so we can move onto something else.
Of course, after a magical gesture, the top card is revealed to be none other than the King of Spades.
This, again, is accomplished by the same process as before—spreading 4 cards this time (or pinky counting), catching a break above the 5C, double undercutting at the break and false shuffling, then doing a double lift to display the KS.
We begin apologizing profusely.
“I am so sorry. This never usually happens. I don’t know what’s come over me tonight. I should never have risked doing this with all the Kings in the deck. I don’t know what I was thinking.”
In a resigned state, we give it one more try—only for the King of Hearts to show itself.
This time, we’re going to use the distance number between the KD and KH—5. We pinky count or spread 4 and get a break, then double undercut and false shuffle. Double lift to display the KH.
At this point, we aren’t even surprised anymore…we’ve resigned ourselves to our fate.
“Perhaps you still have time to catch the other magician’s show. I believe he’s performing across the street.”
Our body is slouched and forlorn. Then we suddenly leap to our feet as if we recalled something.
“But wait! I forgot. I can still try…”
We act as if prompting the audience for an answer, but either way continue by saying:
“…magic! Exactly. Perhaps if I make like this…”
We make a magical gesture over the tabled cards.
“What was your card?”
They name their card—the 5 of Hearts.
We turn the first card over to reveal the KC has transformed into the 5S. The second card is revealed to have transformed from the KD into the 5D. The third card, from the KS to the 5C.
We pause before turning over the final tabled card.
(At this point, the whole audience is ready for the climax they’re sure is coming.)
The final card is…
…the Ten of Spades.
(this is there because of the final King—the card before the KH is the 10S.)
Confused at what went wrong, we look around, bemused.
Then we spot a deck that’s been on the table the entire time. The top card of that deck is our signed 5H.
Turns out your Ambitious Card did work—just on the wrong deck!
To accomplish this final reveal, here’s what I would do:
Before we turn over the four face down cards on the table, estimation cut the 5H back to the top (bearing in mind we’re 5 cards lighter—we removed the 9H and four other cards during the routine.)
Then top palm the 5H (see Live Session for Module 5 for my personal method) and load it on the second deck in the process of making room to arrange the four face down cards.
Here’s an alternate ending that any of you with a decent spread cull can play with:
(we pick up immediately after we reveal the 10S.)
Confused at what went wrong, we spread the rest of the deck on the table. Neither the King nor the 5 are present.
“I should have known. See, as I said, I always remove the Kings before my show and place them here, in my back pocket…”
We reach into our pocket and pull out 4 cards. We turn them face up to reveal the 4 Kings.
“…but somehow, they still find a way to mess with me!”
We finish spreading the cards to reveal one face down card trapped in between the Kings. We take it out and place it face down on the table. The spectator turns it over to reveal their signed 5 of Hearts.
While they applaud, we shake our head as if the Kings really have ruined our act…the irony should be somewhat humorous.
Here’s how that one works:
As the spectators are reacting to the revelation that the 4 Kings on the table have transformed to the Fives, we:
- Estimation cut the 5H to the bottom
- Half pass to turn it face up
- Spread through the deck face down and spread cull the 4 Kings to the bottom—using our knowledge of the Quartet distance numbers plus the current top card (in fact, we can start from the top card as if counting from the 5H to the 5S—since the KC is now in the place of the 5S—and then transition to the King Quartet count from KC to KD to KS.
- Now you have 4 Kings and reversed 5 at the bottom.
- Bottom palm them out and remove from the pocket (with the backs facing the audience) and cut the packet to place the 5H in the center.
(all this is can be done while you aren’t in ‘performing mode’ and the focus is on the revelation.)
Don’t worry if that sounds far too difficult. I figured I’d mention it as a possible method for those who do that kind of thing, but the first method is also great.
(note: I spelt that as ‘faro too difficult.’ Either my autocorrect is also a fan, or perhaps another break is in order…)
They both have unique advantages. The first ends with a ‘callback’ the the Ambitious Card premise, while the second ends with a ‘callback’ to the line you kept repeating during the performance (“I usually remove the Kings before the trick begins.”)
After all of this, the deck is still in stack order, minus the 3 Fives and Ten, which you’ll need to manually reinsert (and, if you used the second ending, the Kings—although that’s simple enough as they’ll be going back in the same spot as the Fives.)
This is an example of combining some simple moves with the Quartet principle to create a very magical effect. But what about something a little more ‘jazzy?’
Well, funnily enough, that happens to be the topic of my next effect…
Jazz Quartet
I’d suggest watching me perform this in the Live Session before reading the following analysis. I’d hate to ruin the surprise…
Back?
Great.
While I explained most of what went on on camera, I figured it couldn’t hurt to put it in writing too.
First of all, I did some homework.
This is super important. You HAVE to do your homework to be able to do this routine.
By homework, I simply mean that I listed the names of Jacob’s family, wife, and yes…even his pet. I then worked out how many letters were in those names.
I then worked out which Quartet set I could get to ‘line up’ with that information.
In this case, the 8s were a great option.
So I forced an 8 on him using a second deck and a timing force (I had 4 eights in a row and tried to time it so he’d call stop within that block. It worked.)
I could spell his sister’s name for the first distance number. His sister’s name had 7 letters, which meant I’d be left with the next 8 as the top card of the deck.
Then I could spell his pet’s name to land on the next 8.
Finally, I could spell his brother’s name to leave the final 8 on the deck.
What about the first 8?
Here’s the other amazing thing about this. You really can stress how free the first choice is—because it is!
Whatever they say, we’re going to estimation cut the first 8 so it shows up when we spell that word.
We could start with the 8 on top and then cut the letters onto it, or we could start with it in the regular stack order and cut based on that. Let’s say we’re starting in stack.
Jacob chose ‘Spain.’
That’s 5 letters. The 8H is 14 in the stack, so I need to cut 9 cards to place it in the 4th position. I’ll know I’ve done that when the bottom card is the 9S (9th card in the stack.)
I can then spell ‘Spain’ and have the first 8 turn up.
The other nice thing about this is that since the first choice really was free, it suggests the method isn’t a force—when really, it is.
Of course, if you’re not feeling up for these kinds of forces, you could simply not give them the choice and just go ahead and spell the names.
But I like having the whole thing feel like they’re ‘freely’ dictating the direction it goes in.
We can force stuff while still having it FEEL free.
For example, when I started, I actually didn’t start by having Jacob name ‘Spain.’
Instead, I asked him to name a sibling. That was on purpose. If he named a convenient sibling, I could then ‘hold onto’ that name and come back to it when I needed it. If he named a sibling that didn’t work—there was no risk, because I could just estimation cut the first 8 into a position where I could spell to it using that name.
(the first one is like a ‘free pass’ —whatever they say, we can make it work. But often they’ll say a word that lines up with one of our later distance numbers and we can say something along the lines of “interesting. We’ll come back to that.”)
As it happened, Jacob named his brother, which was convenient—it lines up with my final distance number.
So I simply asked him “do you want to use that now, or save it to last?”
He said ‘last’, which made my job easy. I could return to it at the end and remind him how much of a free choice he had—he chose the sibling, he chose to use it last.
You might think that’s a gamble. Not really. If he’d said ‘now,’ I’d have estimation cut the 8 into the position to spell to it using that name, so I was covered either way.
How would I have revealed the last card if he’d done so? After all, wasn’t I saving that name for last?
Well, his dad’s name can be spelled using 4 letters (Matt) so I might have asked him to name a parent. If he’d named his dad, I’d be able to spell that name to land on the final 8.
If he’d named his mum, I could either shift cards and spell, or just spell ‘mum’ and reveal the card left on the deck.
Anyway, that was the first and last card covered.
For the other two, I did two other sneaky things:
I had him name a sister. He has three sisters, and two of the three sisters’ names have 7 letters. So I had a 2/3 chance of getting a convenient name, even though it feels like the outcome could have been different depending on who he named. If he’d named the one sister that didn’t have 7 letters, we would be working with a name with 5 letters—I could deal and triple lift. Although it wouldn’t be optimal, I could still make it work.
I also had him “name a pet.”
This was a nice subtlety—me and Jacob know he only has one pet, but if there was an audience present, they wouldn’t. They might think he just randomly picked the name of one of his pets (making it a free choice.)
Indeed, such a thought might have been going through your mind!
Finally, if Jacob hadn’t named his brother to begin with, and we were up to the last card—I’d just ask him to ‘name a brother.’ I know he’s going to say what I want because he only has one brother! (But again, the audience doesn’t know how many brothers he has, so it seems more free than it is.)
Of course, I don’t write this out so you can perform the exact same method. It’s going to vary based on who you perform for—but that’s as close as I can get to showing you HOW to do it.
You need to do your homework, find which Quartet set your spectator ‘lines up’ with best, and then come up with creative ways to make it feel like they have a free choice, when in reality the outcome is constantly being controlled by you.
Also, don’t forget some of the dealing subtleties we talked about in the A.C.A.A.N section—dealing cards and using the next card as the reveal, or using a double lift to reveal the card before or after.
If you end up using slightly different dealing procedures for each revelation, I’d make sure to implement time misdirection between dealing and revealing. For instance, if the first card showed up as the last card of the count, and the next card is revealed as the top card on the deck after dealing, I wouldn’t rush into revealing that card. I’d take a moment to remind them of all the other words they could have chosen, how slow I dealt, how they could have chosen any card—all stuff designed to get them thinking about everything but the ONE thing that’s suspicious (the fact we’re turning over the card after the count vs on the count.)
Now, this routine is a good example of how preparation is key to improvisation. While it looks like a very ‘improvisational’ thing—it’s only made possible because of the vast amount of homework we did beforehand.
Before we move onto the final concept in this module, it’s worth mentioning that you can apply what we talked about earlier in regard to ‘pivoting’ to Quartets too.
This is especially true if you’re performing for people ‘cold.’
In other words, you don’t know them, and so it’s hard to do any of this ‘homework’ we discussed.
Now, that doesn’t mean we can’t do ANY prep. We could note down the city name, street name, venue name, today’s date, other relevant information, and do as much as we can.
But then once you’re there and you’re mingling, you need to be mentally noting names, nicknames, other personal information (nothing TOO personal though—no P.I.N numbers!) and seeing if you can spot any ‘line ups’ with Quartets.
Again, most of the time you won’t. Most of the time we’ll be running straight into that defensive line.
But occasionally, a name will fit. Or a series of names will fit. Or their first name fits the first distance number and their last name fits the second…and their wife’s name fits the third!
You won’t know unless you mentally make the play.
Of course, you don’t want to be doing this in the middle of performance. This is the kind of thing you do between routines, before you start, while mingling, and during other relevant breaks.
It’s challenging.
But the kind of effects this can unlock and the ‘musical’ view this provides is something special.
Alright.
That’s Quartets.
Let’s talk about a principle first discovered in the 50s that still amazes people (including people that know how it works!) to this day…