talkmagic.co.uk

I've got a gig on Sunday afternoon. I'm planning to unveil a new card routine I've been working on since just after Christmas. It's a 5-phaser focusing on the idea that the deck's defective. Since about Easter I've been spending time imagining watching me perform the routine to me in my mind's eye as if I'm the spectator, as well as imagining me performing it to others with me as an uninvolved audience member. This enabled me to work out the big glitches long before I ever felt it was ready to show people, but most importantly I could see it from the one point of view we rarely get to experience in real life. I could see where the energy dips, where it's too high too early and so on. It also gave me ideas about where to embellish the story and where to cut lines. Dunno if that helps.

Man you practice to much lol

The most important thing to be aware of is the typoe of audience you are performing for. Just try doing different tricks with different audiences, and see which tricks work with each audience. The biggest difference in audiences for magic is probably their age group. Sometimes you have to do a lot of magic so that you can get a ffeel for which matches each group. And sometimes it is unavoidable that you will run into a trick that your audience simply doesn't like, or isn't fooled by.

The most important thing to be aware of is the type of audience you are performing for. Just try doing different tricks with different audiences, and see which tricks work with each audience. The biggest difference in audiences for magic is probably their age group. Sometimes you have to do a lot of magic so that you can get a ffeel for which matches each group. And sometimes it is unavoidable that you will run into a trick that your audience simply doesn't like, or isn't fooled by.

mr king I know were you are coming from, I practise and do coin magic for myself but rarely show it to spectators.
instead I do classic magic like the stamp book, change bag and hopping halfs and use a stripper deck for card work.
I do this because it works for the audience and i don't need to think about the tricks and can concentrate entirely on performing to the selected audience.

so to put it simply the tricks i perform for the audience are for them and the coin magic is for me, think of it like watching a chick flick with your significant other so the next day you can watch the footy.
(no offense intended).

[quote="KingJeux."] I was performing the simplest tricks and getting great reactions. ./quote]

I was thinking exactly the same thing this lunchtime. I was trying to learn a new trick from a book that seemed to have 25 sleights and 10 pages of text
to describe it (OK I exaggerate but I started to glaze over reading it let alone performing it). I think I'm going to dust down RRTCM and re-visit some basic tricks that used to get a good reaction. I wouldn't mind but I also find that because of performance nerves I steer clear of the complex effects that I'm trying so hard to master!

I put some more thought into it and I think I have come to think of a better way of putting my dilema into words.

What my major concern is, is that there is SO much new magic coming out and SO much old magic available. I find that I am almost becoming a magic collector instead of performer. I want to learn all the secrets and have a huge repetoire. I have a large knowledgebase of how tricks work and what they do, but what I have figured out is that I am not the performer I should be based on the time I have spent (and do spend!) apparently 'learning' magic.

With the ease of purchasing, downloading and so forth, I find myself overwhelmed. I think I need to filter through what I have, get rid of what I don't need and make notes on what I do.

I forget which post I was on, but I think one of the biggest tips I got from it was learn a bunch of tricks that flow together, routine them and work them to a T. I think that if I did that to create 3 / 4 routines, and THEN have assortment of a variety of tricks to do whenever or to mix and match, then I would be in a better position.

Thanks as well to everyone's input here. My goal is to get out and start performing for real world experience instead of solely my gf / parents / friends. I just need material I feel comfortable with, and have practiced instead of glimpsed through to find out the workings.