It’s A Snap!

When I watch videos of ma­gi­cians (es­pe­cially close-up­pers) on the net, there is one thing that is an­noy­ing to me: the con­stant snap­ping of their fin­gers, when a ma­gic­al mo­ment is about to hap­pen. Sure, we are used to quite a lot of silly “ma­gic­al ges­tures” (in the past years also strange and silly “plops” and whistles from the mouth), but the use­less fin­ger snap­ping for me tops it all.

I agree that a ma­gic­al ges­ture can en­hance the ef­fect and make the spec­tat­ors aware that some­thing ma­gic­al is about to hap­pen. But then — must it be a fin­ger snap? I looked up Wiki­pe­dia and it says: “Snap­ping one’s fin­gers ab­ruptly and re­pet­it­ively, of­ten in con­junc­tion with one or more spoken ex­clam­a­tions, is com­monly em­ployed in get­ting someone else’s at­ten­tion.”

Per­son­ally, I con­nect fin­ger snap­ping with my child­hood in school, with little kids want­ing to get the at­ten­tion and there­fore snap the fin­gers, un­til the teach­er turns to­wards them (at least that was so in my time dec­ades ago). I don’t think this ges­ture to be the ul­ti­mate and truly fit­ting “ma­gic­al ges­ture”. There must be more power­ful ges­tures …

I also won­der where all this snap­ping in ma­gic came from. I re­mem­ber about 30 years ago the first Amer­ic­an per­formers com­ing to Ger­many. I re­mem­ber those “present­a­tions” very well: “I when I snap my fin­gers, the signed card comes ma­gic­ally back to the top of the deck. All I have to do is to snap my fin­gers …”

Back then this seemed sort of nor­mal. Maybe be­cause it was the first time we heard it and saw “present­a­tions” in this way. It also did­n’t mean any­thing to me, be­cause I was watch­ing the trick. But then, now, it has be­come dis­con­nec­ted to what it was meant to be, or at least it seems so. Take a look at this short se­quence:

Fine card moves, sure, but then the snap­ping with the fin­gers. I have nev­er seen a vi­ol­in­ist snap his fin­gers be­fore play­ing a note. In mu­sic, snap­ping the fin­gers is used to keep rhythm. In po­etry read­ings it is used as a sub­sti­tute for the ap­plause done by hand clap­ping. We ma­gi­cians use it care­lessly for … ?

But the fin­ger snap­ping is only one ex­ample. We do have a lot more of these “ma­gic­al ges­tures”:

• whist­ling
• blow­ing on some­thing
• wig­gling the thumbs
• wig­gling the fin­gers
• woofle dust
• cast­ing a shad­ow

Is­n’t it time to think of more im­press­ive, un­ob­trus­ive and sense-mak­ing “ma­gic­al ges­tures”? Ges­tures that mean some­thing and do not make the per­former look like a silly child?

Hmmmm …