talkmagic.co.uk

What I'd like an opinion on is what where does the line between 'teaching' and 'exposure' lie?
Does it lie in the price tag, the way the tutorial is presented or the content of the tutorial itself?

The reason I ask is I recently set up an online magic shop website. On this website, I have started building an online course teaching core sleight of hand skills with cards. (double turnover, double undercut, false shuffles etc... that kind of thing) I hoped that if people liked the tutorials, they would buy tricks from my shop that made use of what they had learned.

However, a fellow magician said to me that teaching basic sleights without a price tag is exposure and that doing so is morally wrong. He also said that I am likely to annoy many magicians by doing so. Perhaps he is right and I should charge for everything but would anyone pay to learn basic sleights when the information is readily available elsewhere? Does a tutorial become exposure if money is not charged?

Does the difference lie in how it is presented? For example, when The Masked Magician presented his televised expose of magic, the underlying tone of the programmes was that of contempt for magic and fellow magicians. He was not trying to encourage people into the art, only at making a fast buck by exposing secrets. On the other hand, whilst I admit I wish to earn at least part of my living from teaching magic, I feel that my tutorials are highly respectful of magic as an art, stress the importance of presentation and practice and are aimed at encouraging more people to take up our art.

Does it lie in the content of the tutorial? Are there some things that are okay to put out for free? Say for example, is it okay to teach the Mechanics Grip but not okay to teach the Elmsley Count?

That is a very interesting point. I think that the way in which you market it will make a big difference. Let's take a case in point:

Derren Brown used to sell a DVD that taught some very clever (and often hard to perform) card tricks. He distributed it via his website, from a password-protected page that required you know something about magic. I seem to remember that the disc cost around £25.

Had he sold this DVD in retail store with the label, "Derren exposes ultimate magic secrets" or some other claim, magicians would probably get upset because, even though it would probably still cost at least £25, it's being marketed at punters rather than magicians.

The type of material you use could also make a difference. When the Masked Magician shows how to perform large-scale illusions he surely does not believe that viewers are going to use that information to perform the same tricks. To me, at least, this is a bad type of exposure because it's just saying, "this is how they do it," whereas a good tutorial is more about, "this is how *you* can do it." I guess that's the main difference between exposure and teaching.

I can also think of TheLearnedPig that offers some great ebooks (also Ezines and more) online for free, if you answer some simple magic related questions.
Btw it hasn't been updated for quite some time so I don't know they still offer the free subscriptions.

If they are open for all people, it might be a problem.
But if you make them private by password protecting or giving links to people who bought magic from your site; I don't think it will be a problem.

Youtube has more advanced exposure videos for free but that doesn't mean we should post some on our sites as well.

It depends a lot on what you're teaching and how you're doing it. There's nothing wrong with a well put together beginners tutorial, free or not if it's done well. If you're hanging it out on the internet for anyone to find then I'd say that's exposure, if it's somewhere that is only going to be found be people who are seriously interested then you're probabaly ok. Also be very careful about what you teach, anything thing that's copyrighted or owned by someone else is exposure and wrong.

Thanks for all the replies. I completely aggree with virtually all thats been said. I like the password-protected area idea but, whilst it is fine in the Derren Brown example, I don't think it is feasible in my situation. My target audience for this course is people looking to get started learning magic so that audience would be unlikely to know the answer to a magic-related question and therefore would be unable to access the content.

I think providing a good learning resource to help beginner magicians is a good way to demonstrate the quality of my other products and to encourage people to purchase other products but on the other hand, some people may view that as exposure.

Regarding the "copyright" issue, virtually all magic tutors will teach sleights and tricks that they did not invent. I believe it to be impossible for anyone to educate someone in magic without teaching something that you didn't invent. It can be argued that it is legal to sell anyones magic tricks as magic tricks are ideas and ideas cannot be copywritten however, I believe that it is very important to minimise treading on the toes of other magicians and I will do my best to respect other people's work as much as possible. All the tricks that you find on my website will either be "classics", variation of "classics", my own creations or someone else's creations sold with the permission of the creator.

jeenious wrote:It can be argued that it is legal to sell anyones magic tricks as magic tricks are ideas and ideas cannot be copywritten however, I believe that it is very important to minimise treading on the toes of other magicians...

Spot on. Ideas cannot be copyrighted, but potential customers can be alienated.

I think you're right that intent is important, The Masked Magician is just taking the magic out of things, you're encouraging people to give magic to others (and I mean magic not the secrets of magic) which can't really be complained about.

I also think it's a case of how much you give away.. If in the example of card tricks you taught them some of the basics of the overhand shuffle, DL etc. fair enough, but (and obviously this may be what you are doing as a store owner) if you do this as a step to then say, 'now learn more from RRTCM' or something of the like it gives a great taster, encourages them to learn more and doesn't give too much away.

I agree with you on the password, it would alienate the very people you wanted to help. I also think that with a lot of magic exposure videos lying about on the internet (something I am not defending), adding your videos for educational purposes to your site as an aid to others who probably want to learn, hence them being on a magic shop website, is hardly going to make the world of magic a worse place and in fact might do the opposite, and make you some money in the process of course...

Finally, why not put a link up to highlight what you mean?

I completely agree, I think you need to find a way of making sure it's seen as a place for genuinely interested beginners to learn the basics rather than a website containing "tutorial videos" a-la youtube... it's a really fine line. I think it's all in the language, like not using the words 'exposed', or "david blane magic teaching". I'm guessing by doing that the likelihood of people stumbling on it by using the wrong search terms will be low

But I do hope you crack it, it sounds like the perfect online substitution of a beginner walking into a bricks and mortar shop and saying "I'd love to learn magic, how do I start?" and being shown a few simple sleights

a fellow magician said to me that teaching basic sleights without a price tag is exposure and that doing so is morally wrong

I disagree!

If you are teaching basics then my view is that it's more about the person that you teach and not the money. How does money suddenly make it acceptable to teach the basics?

There are different types of exposure but in the context of the original question it's my view that it's perfectly fine to teach to a person that want's to learn for the sake of learning. I'm not talking about teaching whole routines or anything that's specialist that another magician has put together and marketed. What I'm referring to is being able to teach basic sleights such as TL's top change, counts, colour changes, palming, french drop etc.

Those who are good enough to teach properly should be able to spot the difference between those who want knowledge to progress and those who just want exposure.

I'm of the view that being able to teach is a gift. You need both knowledge and application which usually comes from many years of experience. To be able to pass on your knowledge and experience to someone has to be a great legacy.

Jokers_smile wrote:If in the example of card tricks you taught them some of the basics of the overhand shuffle, DL etc. fair enough, but (and obviously this may be what you are doing as a store owner) if you do this as a step to then say, 'now learn more from RRTCM' or something of the like it gives a great taster, encourages them to learn more and doesn't give too much away.

I think this is a sound idea. Giving out a few bare basics to encourage learning the art is fine, it will encourage people who might be a bit daunted to buy a big book or expensive DVD not knowing what they will find within it. If they have a starting block, it will wet their appetite.

Adding in the trusty magicians code on each tutorial wouldn't be a bad idea either. I think alot of beginners will be further intrigued by the notion that its their little secret, so they won't go shouting about it to everyone the know. Wishful thinking? It worked on me!

I think I aggree with virtually everything that everyone has posted so far. Thanks to everyone who has taken the time to post on this subject. You've all been very helpful.

dat8962 said:

Those who are good enough to teach properly should be able to spot the difference between those who want knowledge to progress and those who just want exposure.

This is definately true if you are teaching a person on a one-to-one basis, but, as I am delivering lessons via a website, it is not possible to determine the intentions of a random visitor.

I have noticed many websites use language that aims to draw in people seeking exposure without actually exposing much at all. One example being http://freemagiclive.com. I think their intention is to draw in a large amount of traffic from people seeking exposure and then trying to get them to buy their magic products. I believe they have the best of intentions but I don't really want to go down this route. I will be avoiding language that attracts people seeking exposure as much as possible.

Kolm wrote:

it sounds like the perfect online substitution of a beginner walking into a bricks and mortar shop and saying "I'd love to learn magic, how do I start?" and being shown a few simple sleights

This is exactly the type of experience I wish to replicate.
When I started out, all I had was the "Paul Daniels Magic Set 100" (Anyone remember that?!).

Jokers_smile said:

Finally, why not put a link up to highlight what you mean?

I would do but unfortunately my course is nowhere near ready to be shown. I have a lot of work to do still and estimate that it will be a couple of months at least before it's ready to go live.

This whole exposure malarkey is a strange thing.

Someone's said it before on here i think, that the average person in the street did not sign onto Youtube and then immediately think 'I KNOW! I'll look up all those magic tricks i've seen on tv. There's bound to be tutorials'.

You only look at the things that interest you, and from there you could become even more interested and take it a very long way.

There's probably tutorials on the web for knitting, but i have no interest in learning that, so i haven't seen any. I know knitters don't have a code (as far as i know), but I'm being ridiculous to make a point.

One thing that has not been addressed is what qualifies you to be able to teach the moves? Do you have a teaching qualification or do you have extensive real world experience? Do you have any past experience of teaching magic?

To be able to explain, effectively, complex things like sleight of hand is not trivial, but many magicians seem to think that because they may be able to do a move, it means that they can teach it. A quick look at most of the magic instructional material put out today will show that this is simply not the case.

It sounds like you are going to go ahead with your course regardless of what is said here. I think it would be impossible to give any constructive advice without knowing at least something of your background. For example, if you are a teenager who has been in magic for fewer than five years I doubt you would have the experience to be an effective teacher, but if you have been working in the trenches for thirty years then I would love to hear what you have to say.

Take care, Ian

Ian wrote:

One thing that has not been addressed is what qualifies you to be able to teach the moves? Do you have a teaching qualification or do you have extensive real world experience? Do you have any past experience of teaching magic?

As far as I am led to believe, there is no requirement of a qualification to teach magic. That being said, I do have a fair bit of experience performing magic. I am among a handful of people who can truly say that they perform magic on a daily basis. I am a pub landlord and it's one of the few jobs that enables me to perform magic for real laypeople whenever I choose to. Whilst I was a fairly decent magician before I took on the pub, having the pub has definately allowed me to develop my performings skills further and it's allowed me to experiment with different ideas and find out what works and what doesn't work for me. Now whilst I do not claim to have anywhere near the level of experience that many people on here have, and I have only previously given lessons to one person, I believe that I have the level of knowledge and the personal qualities that makes a good teacher. However, that is moving off-topic. It's not about me, its about what is the difference between exposure and tuition.

To be able to explain, effectively, complex things like sleight of hand is not trivial, but many magicians seem to think that because they may be able to do a move, it means that they can teach it. A quick look at most of the magic instructional material put out today will show that this is simply not the case.

I aggree that there is a lot of poorly produced, unprofessional magic products out there. I am confident that mine will not fall into that category though.

It sounds like you are going to go ahead with your course regardless of what is said here.

I have already put a lot of work into this course but it is far from finished. However the reason behind posting this thread was to find out if I should continue with this effort as I do not wish to jepardise my growing reputation by putting up something that would offend the magic community. I feel that was the right thing to do. Now that I have read and taken into consideration feedback from fellow magicians on this forum, I do not believe my course will be seen as 'exposure' and therefore I see no reason to discontinue progress of it. When it goes live, if there is any aspect of the course that you feel needs changed when it goes live then, then feel free to contact me and I will not hesitate to make amendments.