Professional magician Eric Jones recorded this short video for The Merchant of Magic, in which he revealed a valuable secret to becoming a better magician. He told us about something that he wished had been different, when he started out learning his magic tricks.
When you perform your magic tricks, do you ever worry about being caught out and the magic tricks secret being revealed?
For many magicians, their worst fear is that they may have accidentally flashed or revealed a move, forget an important misdirection point, or inadvertently telegraph a sleight. In that moment, the magic trick has failed. The magician is busted, his secret revealed, and everyone knows it. Is that really the worst thing that could happen?
Eric Jones understands that magic practice is often motivated by fear. Once you go through the process of learning the moves, timing and presentation for your magic tricks, you start a much longer, and painful process of building up confidence in your performances and techniques.
You continue practicing the magic tricks with a critical obsession for detail far above the level of perception that your spectators will give the performance. That’s a good thing, as long as it does not prevent you from performing. Without live performance being part of the process of mastering a magic trick, you won’t gain a full understanding of the dynamics and social aspects of the magic tricks. You need to test out your magic tricks on live spectators.
Honesty
Building up confidence requires testing your magic tricks with live spectators. Eric Jones recommends that you watch their reactions and learn from their feedback. The more feedback you get, the more you can adjust your technique and presentation. However, the feedback must be honest.
Getting honest feedback is harder than you would think. Your family and friends care about you, and don’t want to hurt your feelings. They know how much time and attention you put into your magic tricks and how important they are to you. Because they love you, they don’t want to hurt your feelings, so will often tell you what they think you want to hear. They are forgiving if you have accidentally revealed a secret techniques, and because they like you already, they don’t need to be won over by your personality. This makes it very hard to get REAL honest feedback from them.
Even professional magicians find getting feedback from ‘strangers’ hard. People, on the whole, are polite and easy going. They feel embarrassed if a magic trick does not go right, and they are unlikely to point out details. They want to be entertained and for your magic to work. Some people who give you feedback may be drunk, be motivated by wanting the groups attention, or simply wanting to be funny. Knowing how to filter the real constructive feedback from the ‘noise’ can be a challenge.
Regardless of who gives you feedback, there is another element that needs to happen from time to time, for feedback to be the most constructive. It’s uncomfortable, but magicians benefit from:
Being caught out
Every magician gets caught out every now and then, when it comes to live performance. A spectator may catch a flash of a coin, the corner of a card that’s in palm or simply reverse engineer the magic trick in the middle of a performance. The more experienced the magician, the less that happens, but it still does for everyone, now and then.
Professional magicians worry about being caught out far less than beginners. Not just because they are more experienced with the mechanics of the magic tricks, but because they understand that it is inevitable and will not ruin everything.
If a flash happens, only one or two people may catch it. Most people won’t say anything, and the magic moves on quickly to another climax point and the ‘flash’ is forgotten. They may see something odd, but it does not expose the whole method, so the magic trick can still entertain them.
Magic is interesting, and that’s it’s most important ‘feature’. Being entertaining is far more important than your technical skills. Technique should be perfected, and your skills developed to become the best they can be, but audiences are much more forgiving that magicians think. Your audience will be happy as it is being entertained. The danger comes from your act being dry and boring. Then, you are only holding the audience’s attention through your technical skills. If they fail, the audience is left with nothing, so the entertainment factor can only come from reacting to your mistakes. If this is happening to you, then you need to work on making your act entertaining, and interesting FIRST, then move on to sharpen your technique.
Do This:
- Make a point to seek out feedback whenever you can.
- If you make a mistake, don’t give yourself a hard time about it.
- View getting caught as a learning opportunity.
- Take careful note of it and write about it in your magic journal, just after the show.
- Think about a few ways that you could have prevented the mistake from happening.
- Building up notes on how you could have improved each situation.
- Seek out honest opinions, no matter how painful they may be.
Related Posts:
Danger signs for professional magicians
Things to do when your magic tricks go wrong
Recommended Magic Tricks From Eric Jones:
An Extension of Me by Magician Eric Jones
Audio – Coins to Pocket – By Magician Eric Jones
Liberty Fingertips 2 by Magician Eric Jones
Metal – By Magician Eric Jones
Metal 2 – By Magician Eric Jones
Mirage Et Trois by Magician Eric Jones
Twizted by Magician Eric Jones
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Thanks Philip!
Yeah I think getting caught is a good thing because it makes you think on your feet. I've been caught a few times but never on the main bit of the trick if you know what I mean? I think if you're getting caught on the main magic moves, then practice more. A few months ago I went clubbing with some friends, the next day they asked if I remember doing magic in the club & how I was wowing everyone even though I could hardly stand up. I remember none of it, but I obviously did my mainstay tricks that I've been doing for years. The key is practice & practice & then when you've mastered it, practice some more.
It's always 'on the cards' that a slip-up can occur. However, I found that after many years of performing, it became less of a trauma.
I'm not saying I became blase, but it was less important to deliver an absolutely flawless display.
It was more a case of "Here's another one you won't like", and carry on.
We all like to be spot-on all the time, but stuff happens. We are human after all.
Thanks again for the video.
Thanks Bob
Yep, I’ve yet to meet any performer that hasn’t mucked up or had a prop fail on them. It can be a real point of worry and stress for people when they first start performing, but over time, it becomes less of a worry, both from practice, but also the realisation that the world simply isn’t going to end when your card trick goes a bit wrong.
IF A SINGER HITS THE WRONG NOTE THE WHOLE THEATRE IS AWARE.but the show carries on.IF ONE MAGICIAN FLUFFS IT ONLY A SMALL NUMBER OF PEOPLE are concerned and may show their feelings.The best way out is to get some comedy going into the next item and congratulate the few .The majority will prefer you carry on and be entertained.
Hey, these videos, articles and pdfs are just fantastic. Keep up the good work!
Thanks Mike. You’re welcome!
I love the material here it’s appreciated. I’ll say this much about flashing. It can and will at times happen, however in general the audience member who is at that particular BAD ANGLE (and I usually say something to them aka you may/might actually see what is going to happen because of where you’re positioned, please don’t spoil it for everyone else, and guess what they’re courteous enough to FOLLOW DIRECTIONS). I than do something else that will generally make up for the fact that they may/might have “seen something”. In fact I have found this method disarming and it works as a bit of MISDIRECTION in terms of them being disarmed/warned of what may/might happen and that in turn does the trick with regard to how MUCH ATTENTION THEY’RE PAYING–generally their guard is down and they actually SEE NOTHING despite the fact I know I may/might have flashed as a result of where they are aka my angles as opposed to it being a blatant flash or mistake in the trick/effect. Try this technique it may/might work for you. FYI I attempt not to knuckle bust to much and in general I don’t have to worry much about flashing, but when I choose to do some sleights or “moves” I attempt to be as clean as possible. If I inadvertently FLASH I generally just move through the trick/effect saying nothing about the error and progress into the next trick. The other ploy that works with a flash and in particular if you are CALLED OUT is to feign that they were SUPPOSED to see it assuming it has little to do with the CLIMAX of the effect, if it RUINS IT ALL TOGETHER than do a POOR ME ROUTINE. PEACE!
Many thanks to everyone for their input. I tried mentally practicing possible scenarios where I might need to think on my feet and found it paid off. Particularly, I dropped a TT on the floor and the man beside me at the table quipped “is that a cxxxxm”. It was back on my thumb immediately and with finger to lips I replied “Shhhh they’ll all want one”. Everyone laughed even though they didn’t see what he thought he saw. As a female magician I was briefly taken aback but the mental practice paid off.
I’m always impressed by the advice given by MoM. Helpful in raising the bar. Thanks guys.
I appreciate your candor and it really makes sense. Thank you very very much
My friend Eugene Burger advised: “If a trick goes wrong, simply smile, shrug, and say ‘Well, back to the drawing board with that one!” and move on to the next effect. Performing for paying audiences (not just friends and family) for nearly 50 years has taught me to relax, enjoy my time performing, and realize that nobody is perfect. If your audience is having half as much fun as your are, they will forgive you for being human and screwing up occasionally! 🙂