Magicians are a fickle bunch. We have a tendency to be distracted by the newest
trick. But, of course, why not, that is what got us hooked to begin with. As we
mature in our craft we need to set specific goals. This is what gets us focused.
My suggestion to you, is to set a performance goal. Choose a date in the near future, say
two months. On that date have a performance. If you are an amateur, do it for the club,
your school, a retirement home, hospital, or whatever. BUT, and this is important….
make a commitment to that person or organization. Have a firm date and be locked in. It
does not matter if you are doing it for free or not, just get a performance date. Ahhh,
now the pressure is on. Suddenly focusing will start to be
a little easier.Once you have the date, decide what will be the best venue. In other
words, will you be doing stand-up, walk-around, or table magic. Then decide on a theme,
romantic, comedy, mentalism, reminiscing (for the retirement home), or even educational.
DO NOT think about magic yet. Simply, think of a theme. Like a movie or theater
presentation. Come up
with a common thread or story line that will make your performance interesting even if you
did not do magic. Do you have that?….. good. . . . now the next step.
Look through the tons of useless crap that you have bought over the years from the magic
stores, conventions, catalogs, and from friends. Look at each item that you have and see
if you can think of a way to tie it into the story line that you have developed. Don't
think of them with the patter or performance that was given with the trick. Look at them
from new perspectives. Write down each idea . . . . no matter how dumb it sounds. As you
look make sure to include all tricks for consideration, gypsy thread, twisting arm,
McCombical deck, etc. Look at the calendar . . . . the clock is ticking. Holy Cow . . .
time is flying. Got to stay focused.
Once you have put together the initial routine. Play it out about twenty times. Let your
mind continue to roam over alternate possibilities. Let your patter be creative, open, and
experimentive. Once you have semi-solid routine, show it to some other magicians or even
trusted laymen. (I personally have some laymen friends that I show my stuff to for ideas,
because they will look at it from a non-magic stand point. They will not worry if it is a
Vernon move with a Marlo subtlety.) Get their ideas and
incorporate them into your own. You should now have a good solid routine to work from.
(Usually, routines will continue to grow, mature, and develop over a few years as you
perform them over and over again.)
Look at the calendar . . . . . oh-oh. Only a couple of weeks left. Starting to feel
pressure? That helps you focus. Now just practice your routine every night. Concentrate on
where every prop comes from and goes.
How are you standing and facing your audience. If you use an audience member, do you want
them on the right or left of you. How are you vocalizing your words? What is the pace and
rhythm of your performance?
Finally, it is performance day. If you have followed the above advice you will find that
you have a semi-polished routine that you can rely on for years. You will also notice that
you were not distracted so much by other tricks. This is because you had a goal. Most of
the time, when we find ourselves going from one trick to the next it is because we have no
purpose
or objective to learning them.
Well, let me know how this works for you.
I think that we are dealing with two different types of spectators.
They are:
1) I think I know how he might have done it.
This is the non-challenging spectator that just thinks they might
have figured it out. Many times their ideas are pretty far out there. (The cards are
magnetic, the cards change when they heat up with your hands, the cards are
chemically treated, they went up your sleeve.) Proving the fairness (of the trick
you are performing) here will add to the magic of the moment. The magician must have
something of interest to say during this process, otherwise it becomes a little boring and
breaks the tempo. For instance, if the spectator says, "I think all the cards are the
same." I will show the cards to be different and say something like, "No,
they're all different, otherwise the Friday night poker game would be very boring."
These type of spectators I will adjust the presentation for and have a
good time. There have been those times that I have done only one trick for a group and
then spent the next 10 minutes in a fun and spirited conversation. This has the effect of
showing spectators/patrons/customers that I am not going to push magic down your throat,
I'm just sharing a good time with you along with a magic moment.
2) You can't fool me and I will catch you magic boy.
These are the spectators just don't seem to enjoy magic. They take
everything as a personal challenge to their ego. They will blurt out a secret even if it
can not possibly be the answer. Comments such as, ( I did magic when I was a child also;
Aww, it's just a trick deck; or nod their heads in a knowing way with a smirk) These are
the challenging spectators. They will only enjoy your performance if they can belittle it.
The degree of antagonism might be different but the thinking is all the same. For these
people, I will not waste my time proving anything. If they are at a table with other
spectators that seem to be enjoying the performance, I might do a quick proof , but
nothing more.
There will be nothing gained by proving anything with this spectator;
because, even if you prove everything is fair, others will see this as a contest between
two people. The atmosphere will become less enjoyable and more tense. The 'who is going to
win and get their feelings hurt' attitude starts to creep into the performance.
Many times we can have a night where we amazed 30 tables of spectators, but there was that
one table and they didn't like the magic/us. We start to obsess on this one table. We
forget that thirty other people really enjoyed it. But, no, we must have everyone enjoy us
and think us amazing. This is when we get into those no-win proving situations. Even at an
academy award winning movie there are those who don't like it. It is
the same with our performances. I believe that the magicians that have good people and
performance
skills know how to avoid and deal with the situations that we have talked about. There is
no steadfast rule on how to handle these circumstances.
Christian David