talkmagic.co.uk

topper159 wrote:I think flourishing is okay without the patter but I personally don't like magic wihtout patter because I think it becomes all about the handling and only really other magicians understand and appreciate this. I think to a normal audience the speech is the key

So, when the audience sees an 18" silk change colour, then the magician produces a bowl full of water with live goldifsh swimming in it, only other magicians appreciate this?

Most illusionist acts are done to music, with little or no speech involved. Las Vegas audiences seem to enjoy them.

On a very different scale, Ali Bongo's classic 'Shreik of Araby' character did (does?) hilarious routines that were entertaining for adults as well as kids, with no patter at all.

Serendipity wrote:In my opinion, a good magician should be magical.

I think this is right. You can entertain people while doing magic, but that doesn't necessarily make you a good magician. I can't remember where I saw this, but a few months ago, someone said that a magician entertains people with magic.

You can be a magician, who happens to be highly entertaining, and who audiences love, without being a good magician. The clearest example I can think of is Tommy Cooper. He did magic (and, in his earlier years, often did tricks correctly), and was very funny, but I'm not sure you could honestly say he was a great magician.

I can't agree more. On Halloween, the local park has an annual public party sort of thing. Last year, I went to see the free magic show there, and was extremely disappointed. The jackasses who did the magic show had pathetic tricks, but got paid (I imagine) more than I ever was to do the show. Granted, I'm an amateur, but that's not the point. Their magic sucked. The audience saw through most of it, they messed up an arm chopper routine (they exposed the gimmick), their levitation sucked, and when they did their sponge ball production (one at a time from the mouth), I heard the laypeople mumbling in the crowd about how it was done. The laypeople were right. On the level of creating a mystery, they were dreadful.

But they entertained and got paid.

sorry being only into card magic i forget sometimes their are other forms my apologies

I should have said i believe patter is most important in card tricks blah balh blah handling and what i said before

Hello all.

I just wanted to say a few words on this.

The trick is half the battle if not less. I could pass, top palm, palm coins or even if magic was real make my house vanish while my friends watched on. OK, they would be impressed but not entertained. I think thats the key word.

Take David Williamson. He is a master of card slights and close up as you will all know, but if you have seen him on some of the TV shows? He does not use tech demanding magic to entertain he uses a skill that i could only dream of.

Ok he is a pro and a master or comedy which i know many people dont base their act on but it shows true entertainment.

If you can make the on lookers smile without even moving your hands or doing an effect, you are half the way there.

Just my thought. I maybe wrong..

in my useless opinion a 'magician' is just an idiot doing 'stupid' tricks unless they can really engage the audience and make them think 'wow that was amazing' rather than 'very clever, how did you do that'. At the moment Im just at the 'idiot' stage

While skill and ability plays an important role in your quest to entertain, they aren't as important as the audience and how you present yourself and the effect you are performing. As a working magician I realized that its not about me or the trick that I choose, its about the audience and making them feel that they are part of something very magical. They will have memories of things that could not have been possible with out magic. Do your best to make the audience your prime concern and don't try to show them that you are a clever fellow.
Cheers
Al

I disagree with the sentiment that in order to be a good magician you must be magical.

I agree with Lomster's point that magicians are entertainers.
It's what we are really.
We're the same as comedians, clowns, jugglers and ventriloquists. We're just entertainers. There's nothing special about us.

Therefore the important point is to be entertaining.
If an entertainer is magical but not entertaining, then really they're a smug little so and so doing magic.

But if an entertainer is entertaining, then he, she or it is right on the button.

The guy at the park was entertaining in an incompetent, obnoxious way.

Being entertaining is important, but without the miracle, the entertainment isn't magic.

Magic is different. not necessarily 'special' or more 'important' than the other forms of entertainment. But inarguably different.

A comedian uses his personality, dialog, and stories to invoke laughter. Clowns are silly and amusing. Jugglers display incredible dexterity and coordination with a bit of drama. Ventriloquists throw their voice and often use that to aid in their comedy.

Magicians' 'effect' as it were, is to let the audience witness something impossible (or extremely improbable) under scrutiny. The effect is wonder, astonishment, or whatever else you want to call it.

The big picture is, yes, to be entertaining, but the means to the entertainment is what defines our art.

sleightlycrazy wrote:The guy at the park was entertaining in an incompetent, obnoxious way.

Then has he not suceeded?

I hear this comment often enough - usually someone complains about a person who just pulls out gimmick after gimmick after gimmick after gimmick and entertains the crowd.
Our fellow magician friends see this is as being "incorrect" or make comments such as "he couldn't even do a DL!" but as the incompetent young busybody with a gaff deck is getting better reactions than our sleight master, I wonder is this jealousy?

I think that there can be a big difference between a technically good magician and an entertaining magician. You don't have to be technically brilliant to be entertaining and at the same time, that magician who can do all the sleights isn't always entertaining.

I think too many magicians worry about getting everything perfect and don't put the time in to think about the entertainment value. I know I've been guilty of that before and I'm sure that most other people have.

my multiplying bunnies routine, it took me a couple of days to put together and always gets by far the best reaction of any routine I've got, including some that have taken months to perfect.

Are you a good magician, well that's down to the audience to decide. If you entertain them and they enjoy your show then, as I see it, you've done the job that you set out to do. That's what makes a good magician, I think.

EckoZero wrote:I disagree with the sentiment that in order to be a good magician you must be magical.

So, if you are an entertaining singer then you can call yourself a magician? Therefore, all entertainers are magicians?

A magician, by definition, does magic. If you are not doing magic, if you are not magical, then you are not a magician no matter how entertaining you are.

Mike.

Brian Tudor does magic - but no one would claim him to be magical in the slightest.
He is however very entertaining.

I believe that makes him a good magician.

Yes a magician must do magic, but I don't think they have to be "magical" to be a good magician is all

EckoZero wrote:

sleightlycrazy wrote:The guy at the park was entertaining in an incompetent, obnoxious way.

Then has he not suceeded?

I hear this comment often enough - usually someone complains about a person who just pulls out gimmick after gimmick after gimmick after gimmick and entertains the crowd.
Our fellow magician friends see this is as being "incorrect" or make comments such as "he couldn't even do a DL!" but as the incompetent young busybody with a gaff deck is getting better reactions than our sleight master, I wonder is this jealousy?

He failed. He failed to fool people.

Sleightlycrazy, I see your point entirely. It sounds like he was technically terrible.
But as he was there to entertain and he managed to entertain (even if he was technically unsound and failed to fool anyone) then as an entertainer he suceeded.
He entertained with poorly done magic, which kind of creates a catch 22 in the argument.

Should I retract my original statements? Nah.

But I will revise my point of view to suggest that it is necessary that the audience cant see through what you're doing.