learning magic Archives

Should Magicians Give Purpose to Magic

If you really could perform magic, what would you do? Would there be a purpose to magic you perform?

As magicians we spend the majority of our time losing and finding playing cards, making small predictions, or having things vanish and appear around us. The tricks lack any purpose other than to entertain and amaze. What is the point of making a coin bend in a spectators hand or making a ball vanish from under one cup and appear under another, followed by the appearance of some lemons under the cups? Great magic, but utterly pointless. We can increase the power of our performances by giving a purpose to magic.

Creating purpose to magic we perform has been one of the ‘themes’ of the second series of Dynamo Magician Impossible. Let’s look at a few examples:

Dynamo is talking to the DJ in a nightclub. However, the club is packed and he can’t get out past the crowds. What would he do if he really could perform magic? He would simply fly over the crowd to the exit. That’s exactly what he did.
Dynamo visits HMV to meet his fans. It all gets too much and he needs to escape. What would a magic user do? Simply disappear. That’s exactly what he did.
Dynamo watched a street performer and wants to reward him. He notices the performer has images of money printed on his clothes, so he turns one of the pictures real so he can give the performer a tip.

Dynamo used magic to solve his problems. That’s the purpose of magic shown on the show. How can you design your magic tricks to be useful in this way?

Purpose to Magic

I expect you may feel going from table to table entertaining people would be quite a low priority for most true magic users. So why WOULD you be an entertainer?

Perhaps, to make people believe again?

Most people believed in magic when they were kids, but then life got in the way and they came to believe what the world told them, that magic was just pretend. Could making people question this belief, be the real role of a magician?

“What would I have to do right now to make you believe in magic?”

If you ask that question whenever you next perform close up magic you will start to notice you get the same sets of answers over and over again.

Make a bottle of wine appear
Turn this £10 note into a £50 note
Fly
Make xxx disappear
Bend a wine glass
Read my mind like Derren Brown

If you collected all the questions over a period of time you will get a group of the most frequently asked questions, many of which you could have tricks ready to perform.

There would also be some answers which you couldn’t do. For example: “Make a tiger appear” or “Make my wife disappear” but it would be easy to create a set of funny answers for each of those suggestions.

You could construct an act which allows you to perform most of those requests. You would then simply pick a suggestion from the group that ‘hits’ and actually DO it for them. Powerful stuff!

When asking the group, you ideally want to get suggestions from several different people at the table. This way you will be likely to hit upon a request that you can actually do. If you don’t get a ‘hit’ you can turn it into a joke or an aside, as you move into your normal routine set. Don’t tell them you intend to perform their suggestions until after they give them, so you have a perfect ‘out’ by changing the subject if a hit doesn’t happen.

If you decide to try this out please let me know how you get on. You can do this in the comments section below:

Creators of Magic Tricks and Why You Should Contact Them

by Merchant of Magic 3 Comments

By Dominic Reyes

Magic is a very small community, and being a magic creator is not a mass market activity. The magicians who develop great tricks tend to be obsessed by magic! Many of them put a huge amount of time and effort into creating an effect, for very little financial reward. They do it because they love inventing tricks, and seeing their creation being used by magicians. They don’t get to be millionaires from their creations, and as a rule tend not to be business minded.

Why do the creators of magic tricks do it?

They are simply magicians like you and me, who came up with a great idea and want to share it. They LOVE getting feedback from people who are using their tricks. As they tend to also be magicians, they are very easy to contact directly. Shoot an email over to the creator of the trick you are learning. A quick Google search should bring up their website. Let him or her know you are seriously learning their trick.

Avoiding the dangers of magic forum reviews

When a new trick is released, within a few days the magic forums become full of ‘user reviews’ of the trick. These early reviews are really just ‘first impressions’ as the reviewers have not had time to learn and perform the trick they are ‘reviewing’. Because of this, they tend to be based largely on the production value of the product and the first impressions of the gimmicks included. Often they are written after just a quick watch of the DVD and a little play with the props. These ‘reviews’ make up much of the feedback creators of magic tricks receives about their magic release.

When an email comes in from someone seriously interested in learning how to perform the trick, it’s a real breath of fresh air to the creators of magic tricks, and they tend to help that person as much as possible. Their advice and guidance is very valuable to you!

Would you like to learn more about getting the best out of the next new magic trick you plan to learn? We have produced a free 36 page ebook on the subject (This post content was actually taken from one of the pages of the ebook). You can download the free ebook below:

What to Do When Your New Magic Trick Arrives

by Merchant of Magic 1 Comment

By Dominic Reyes

It’s arrived in the post! A large padded envelope has been dropped off by the postman and you are standing by the front door, staring down at it.

You know what’s inside…

After all you’ve been excited about this moment right from the second you clicked the ‘confirm order’ button.

Now it’s finally in your hands

Your next move…

Rip it open, play with the props and experience a small feeling of disappointment? Maybe!

The problem with magic is that the secret is hardly ever as exciting as the magic effect it produces. That’s one of the reasons why TV shows that expose the magicians secrets never do well in the ratings over time. The whole value of magic, its charm and fascination, is in the feeling created by the magician using the props.

The props and techniques are not special in and of themselves. They are by their own nature ‘empty’. For example, there is nothing special in either a coin or a handkerchief. But when the coin is placed inside and transforms into something else, then the magic has been created. The props don’t contain this, it’s the way they are used that makes the magic. When you receive a new magic trick, you are excited about the effect you saw demonstrated and want to perform yourself. But the contents of the package don’t hold any of this, it’s up to you to create it.

So how can you avoid this feeling and get the most from the new magic trick you decided to learn? Choosing it is just the first step!

The Merchant of Magic team have created a free ebook teaching you how to get the best from the next new magic trick you intend to learn. Written by professional magicians, ‘How To Learn New Magic Tricks‘ takes you from the moment you rip open the packaging to your first performance.