One of the most common problems we see holding back close-up magicians is the idea of learning on the job…

The belief that it’s OK to just learn the basics of a few magic tricks, then to go out right away and start performing for the public without any practice. It’s an attitude that magic shops have partly been responsible for. Magic Shops turn over new releases every day, they depend on a stream of magic enthusiasts eagerly buying new self working magic tricks all the time. The process of:

Buy

Play

Perform once or twice,

Buy again…

It’s a cycle, with tricks being sold as consumer items to purchase, play with and perform to your friends in coffee shops or pubs a couple of times, then it’s back to shop again. This way of marketing magic as a ‘past time’ often to a young base of close-up magicians, is fine as a recreational activity, but it’s often packaged as a way of developing as a magician.

Let’s look at the pro’s and cons of this attitude:

Four Reasons why it’s fine to start performing before you have practiced a trick

1) Getting out to perform before you have mastered your material, means you don’t have to view yourself as a hobbyist. You can start calling yourself a ‘pro’ right away and charging people to see your magic.

2) The best real feedback, and an honest response come from the general public.

3) It’s hard to learn the fine tuning, timing and professional touches of a trick without live performance.

4) You’re never going to see these people again, so it doesn’t matter if you give a bad show, or that they think you are a terrible magician, or that ‘live’ magicians in general are not very good. You don’t have any duty or debt to represent magicians in general. You can practice and walk away, so really there is no risk to you.

YOU ARE BETTER THAN THAT

Why it’s best to practice your material BEFORE performing to the public.

There is nothing wrong with enjoying magic as a hobby. Not everyone wants to go out and perform to the public. That’s fine, and for many people, it’s the best option for them to get the most out of magic. We don’t all need or want to be performers.

The danger of the amature is that:

The less you know, the less unsure you are , and the happier you are to appear a professional. ‘The foolish don’t not know that they do not know…’

It’s so easy to sit around playing with magic tricks with your friends, then decide to print some business cards, grab a few simple magic tricks, and to get out and call yourself a magician. Often the result, unless your real skill is a dynamic, interesting personality (Which is something you HAVE mastered over time) is that you will present your magic, at very best, in an AVERAGE generic and unpolished way. There’s no WORK behind it. It’s generic, and can be copied by the next magician that visited the same magic shop as you..

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.

I’m often asked: How can I learn all the finer points of a trick before I’ve had experience?

Yes, I agree with magicians that say that you can only really learn the finer points of a presentation through performance. I find that too. However, that doesn’t mean a process of practice, rehearsal, and adjustment shouldn’t take place first. Practice has two main stages:

Practice of the mechanics, and timing.
Rehearsal of the presentation

Many magicians who fail to develop the patter, eye-contact, gestures, and timing that a polished routine demands, have often skipped REHEARSE stage. That means they just go through the mechanics, but stops at the ‘acting’ part of the preparation. They find they freeze up when in-front of a live audience, or they forget their words etc. This freezing, also happens when magicians try to perform a trick they have not worked on, in a live busy environment.

Look at the rest of show business.. Plays, Movies, everything… Look at the magicians that are successful: Dynamo, Derren Brown, Blaine, Copperfield.. You will find distinct, focused practice at the core of their work. Skill is developed, then their act is rehearsed and refined. ONLY then, will live performance continue the development. Doing less than that and you are like a cheap generic DJ that just presses start on a series of playlists. Anyone can do that… Don’t be just ANYONE.

Your first live performances CONTINUE your practice, rather than replace it.

You have responsibilities to everyone in magic

If you think you can perform half mastered tricks to the public, and that it doesn’t matter if you mess up, because you don’t know the people. Think about the impression you leave. You might not see those people again, but they WILL remember YOU. They will also tell their friends about you. That’s called reputation. Don’t build a bad reputation first, then work to fix it…

You set your audience’s expectations for future close-up magicians. Don’t be the embarrassing guy that just turns up and does some fumbled, unpolished magic.. Be the magician and really impress them with THE BEST YOU CAN DO.

I would no more recommend that at musician pick up a guitar in a bar, and play songs badly all night, than I would suggest that a close-up magician practice new material to the public without the work they should put in PREPARING their material and performance. Think about the impression you are giving and how you represent the magic community.

How can you know when you are ready to become a magician for hire?

Dominic Reyes – Magiens Verden Magazine Interview – Magic Practice

Magic Tricks Gone Wrong – Mistakes in Magic

Magic Trick Skill Levels Vs. Effort Levels

by Dominic Reyes Leave a Comment

I’m often asked about the skill level of different magic tricks the MoM sell. I usually give a brief summary of the technical moves and try to label it as Beginner, Intermediate, or Advanced. That satisfies the questioner, but it secretly annoys me for this reason:

You already know this, but anyway… As with all magic tricks that use sleight of hand, it’s going to need a commitment from you to put in regular practice over a long period of time. It’s a ‘project’ for you rather than a quick fix trick to play with.

Sometimes, when people ask ‘How difficult is it?’ they really mean ‘Will this require any effort from me?’

It involves holding a coin or some playing cards and slowly repeating a series of moves over and over again until it becomes smooth and second nature. The movements are easy as long as you can hold a coin or some cards in your hand. No trick or technique is difficult to do, IF you do it over and over again until it’s second nature. It’s all about deciding you are prepared to give it consistent, regular attention to drill the methods.

I’ve found the key for building up speed is to slow it right down during the practice drill phase. Slower the better. Allow speed to develop all by itself. Slow means that you will hardwire the best technique right from the start.

As far as giving up… The enemy of practice is ‘choice’. Most practice effort ends before it gets results because people jump to something else instead.

The answer may be to commit to just ONE item for a period of time as you drill it. Just pick one thing you REALLY want to learn and set that as a goal. Then drill it (perhaps 20 times, twice a day, every day for 20 days, then assess and repeat)

There’s no getting around the fact that stuff like this is skill development. It takes effort and time, but the rewards and feeling of excitement as you develop makes it totally worth it.

If you would like to learn more about this, there’s a free ebook on magic practice here

I highly recommend you read this post on motivation and effort

Magic Tricks Difficulty Level Easy – Why That’s Wrong

by Dominic Reyes 2 Comments

By Dominic Reyes

If you read that a magic tricks difficulty level is easy, don’t fall into the trap this guy did..

On the whole I hate magic forums. If I didn’t have to post on them as part of my job, I’d avoid them. Why?.. Because usually they are just a place where great magic tricks go to die.

Don’t get me wrong, the magic community is a great asset for magicians, and sharing ideas can really help. But there is just so much bad advice on most threads when it comes to performing.

I can live with the ego’s, pent up resentment, lost ambition, and armchair experts. I just get mad when beginners read advice from other beginners, that is plainly wrong and could set their magic practice backwards.

Here’s just such a comment I read on a popular forum:

XXXXX writes: ‘Difficulty: Easy: That to me states no practice required.‘

XXXXX is a regular customer of MoM, so I was pretty surprised to read this comment. I know that he likes to ‘troll’ on the reviews section of forums, playing the popular game ‘expose a tricks secret through 20 questions’, or posting comments designed only to annoy. I assumed the post was probably just there to wind people up, but a real beginner might actually think this guy (with a lot of previous posts) knows what he is talking about..

Just so YOU don’t come across that post and take it seriously. Here’s what he could have written:

Difficulty Easy: That means the mechanics of the trick are easy to learn, or that the props are easy to operate.

I’m sure you can probably word it better than that. So perhaps leave a comment in the section below. Anyway, the point is that ‘EASY’ DOES NOT MEAN YOU CAN SKIP PRACTICE..

Luckily a magician quickly replied on the forum thread: ‘If you want novelty gags then that’s a different thing. Magic takes practice.‘

Without sufficient practice you will, at best, give an ‘average magicians performance’. YOU are better than that..

If a magic trick is described by a magic shop as easy. It’s to help magicians that need to choose tricks that are not complex, dependent on sleight of hand, or assume advanced dexterity or misdirection/audience control skills. That does make them a great fit for beginners, but it doesn’t refer to practice at all.

Never attempt to perform a trick to the public on the day you learn it. I urge you to practice the method and get comfortable & confident as you turn the trick into a solid routine over time. You must drill, and rehearse every trick, it’s presentation, timing, context within your act, meaning within your performing persona, etc etc.

This takes time and effort. If you would like more information on this. Please read this free copy of the book Approaching Magic Practice.