talkmagic.co.uk

Soren has a lot of questions and to answer them all in any depth is a bit overwhelming. I think I will have to take one at a time. However I will give my general philosophy on the matter.

I believe it is utterly ESSENTIAL that entertainment comes first. After all you are supposed to be an ENTERTAINER. Magic is one of the ENTERTAINMENT arts. In fact as I have said already the ability to entertain is not a separate thing. It is PART AND PARCEL of being a magician. I would even go so far as to say that if you cannot entertain with your magic then you shouldn't even be bothering in the first place.

However I need to clarify something. By "entertaining" I don't necessarily mean being "funny" In fact if you are the sort of magician who makes feeble attempts to tell jokes when it just plain doesn't suit you then you could actually be harming yourself with your audiences.

Entertainment should be looked at in a broader sense. You can entertain by being dramatic like Dunninger was or mysterious like David Blaine is. You can be entertaining by being poetic and artistic like David Copperfield sometimes is or you can be entertaining with the sheer spectacle of your work.

However you cannot be entertaining with the power of the trick alone. And even if you could be then you still deserve no credit whatever. If you are getting by merely because of the strength of the trick then it is the inventor of the effect who should be getting the applause and not you.

But here is the intriguing part. If you are entertaining you will INCREASE the impact of the trick. You will get stronger reactions if you work on the presentation and both you and the audience will benefit from it. And the trick benefits too.

I have always said that any fool can manipulate cards, coins etc; It takes much greater skill to manipulate PEOPLE. And if you can do this then you have it made.

I will answer our young Dane's questions in more depth later. However in order to help him properly I think it would be helpful to know something about the person I am talking to. Most importantly how old is he? And how long has he been doing magic? And where does he perform his magic? Does he ever do any kind of paid gig?

Once I have some picture of him in my mind I will see how I can advise him how he can progress getting strong reactions from laymen. I emphasis the word "Laymen". I have utterly no interest in trying to please magicians. That is not where true art lies.

The old fashioned term is "Conjuring for Conjurers". I eschew it and utterly detest it. It is incestuous and has no purpose whatever unless you are the sort of person who makes money by writing books and teaching impractical material that wouldn't work in the real world.

I shall continue with this sermon later.

mark lewis wrote:Soren has a lot of questions and to answer them all in any depth is a bit overwhelming. I think I will have to take one at a time. However I will give my general philosophy on the matter.

I believe it is utterly ESSENTIAL that entertainment comes first. After all you are supposed to be an ENTERTAINER. Magic is one of the ENTERTAINMENT arts. In fact as I have said already the ability to entertain is not a separate thing. It is PART AND PARCEL of being a magician. I would even go so far as to say that if you cannot entertain with your magic then you shouldn't even be bothering in the first place.

However I need to clarify something. By "entertaining" I don't necessarily mean being "funny" In fact if you are the sort of magician who makes feeble attempts to tell jokes when it just plain doesn't suit you then you could actually be harming yourself with your audiences.

Entertainment should be looked at in a broader sense. You can entertain by being dramatic like Dunninger was or mysterious like David Blaine is. You can be entertaining by being poetic and artistic like David Copperfield sometimes is or you can be entertaining with the sheer spectacle of your work.

However you cannot be entertaining with the power of the trick alone. And even if you could be then you still deserve no credit whatever. If you are getting by merely because of the strength of the trick then it is the inventor of the effect who should be getting the applause and not you.

But here is the intriguing part. If you are entertaining you will INCREASE the impact of the trick. You will get stronger reactions if you work on the presentation and both you and the audience will benefit from it. And the trick benefits too.

I have always said that any fool can manipulate cards, coins etc; It takes much greater skill to manipulate PEOPLE. And if you can do this then you have it made.

I will answer our young Dane's questions in more depth later. However in order to help him properly I think it would be helpful to know something about the person I am talking to. Most importantly how old is he? And how long has he been doing magic? And where does he perform his magic? Does he ever do any kind of paid gig?

Once I have some picture of him in my mind I will see how I can advise him how he can progress getting strong reactions from laymen. I emphasis the word "Laymen". I have utterly no interest in trying to please magicians. That is not where true art lies.

The old fashioned term is "Conjuring for Conjurers". I eschew it and utterly detest it. It is incestuous and has no purpose whatever unless you are the sort of person who makes money by writing books and teaching impractical material that wouldn't work in the real world.

I shall continue with this sermon later.

OK, I am 4x so not that young. I began doing magic when I was 8 yr old and I got my first swengali deck at the same age though it was only later I realised some of the more clever was of handeling the deck. At 10 I performed the linking rings good enough to impress friends and I performed magic at various family parties (weddings and anniversaries).
Thus I learned managing the spectators early in my life!

I also got bill in lemon when I was 10 and for the first time realised that magic could be difficult and I never dared perform the effect . Around the same time I watched a magician do linking rings in circus (I think he did Vernons version + plus an extra final kicker) and I was amazed and for the first time I realised how much "presentation" and practice matters in magic. It came as a shock how well one could do the linking rings! That experience probably thought me that magic was not really for me, since I realised that I could not do magic full time!

After that formative experience for many years magic as a hobby almost vanished. Instead of magic Chess and Bridge became my passion. I played at an international level but my real talent was in mathematics. When I perform magic I never want people to know that I am a research mathematician, since it undermines the magic and create unnecessary barriers. Around 10 year ago I began to focus on card magic and I am essentially a cardian (who has extended his repertoire with sponge balls and a few coin effects).

About two years ago I began to perform at school fetes, charity events, fund raising unpaid. This gave me quite a lot of paid work including birthdays for teenagers as well as work at Oxford Colleges. They pay me quite well and I never sell myself cheap. I do not advertise, but usual each performance lands me more jobs. My next paid gig is at a tennis club later this mouth and around the same time I am doing a paid performance at a teenage party.

I do a lot of unpaid performances (to keep up practice). This include performing for students (since I have 200+ students I have to opportunity to practice any type of magic I want - including standup or stage magic).
Usually, I prefer to separate my teaching from my magic, however at special occasions (e.g. open days at our university) I perform.

Hope this make it a bit more clear who I am. If I am boring, the students give bad feedback and one obvious should look of a different profession. My everyday role of lecturing is not to entertain, but to teach and motivate the students to want to learn. Actually, it’s the teaching (not the entertainment) that is in focus.

These days, people most often use Derren Brown (or David Blaine) as reference point when they judge my magic. I think this apply a lot to magicians. Derren Brown and David Blaine have set the standard the layperson compare measure us against. Good magic should not fall short of what they do!

My style of magic is a somewhat serious (but not dry) packed with very strong card magic. I am quite natural and often I talk and joke a bit with people before I perform. I have also adopted other style that is more commercial and aimed at stroll around situations. I am not so pleased with that style, but it definitely also lands me some money.

Hope this help understand where I am coming from.