There’s no point trying to deny it, everyone at one point in their life has thought about wanting to start learning magic. Therefore, we thought it would be a good idea to give you our top tips on how to become a good magician.
Learn as much as you can – Oliver B – Magician London
Read and Watch
There is often some debate as whether it’s better to learn magic by reading books or by watching DVDs. We believe that there is no answer and it truly depends on how you learn best. If you prefer to read a book then obviously you’re going to find it easier to read a book and vice versa.
However, most people like to mix it up and do a bit of both. Don’t feel like you have to buy it all at once, start with something that you are interested inland once you have mastered that certain trick or technique, move on to the text thing.
Lectures
Take every opportunity you get to widen your knowledge of magic, especially if you can get advice from an experienced magician. It doesn’t matter whether you’re their biggest fan or you’ve never heard of them before, it’s also helpful to learn more from others.
Practice Makes Perfect! – Oliver B – Magician London
The key to becoming good at anything is practice, you can’t just expect to start learning a new language one day and hope to be fluent in it the next, the same applies to magic. Practice a couple of tricks infant of the mirror until you can perform the trick flawlessly without even having to think about it. A lot of magicians buy a trick and want to perform it tomorrow which can often lead to the routine not being as good as a magician who has practiced their trick over and over again.
Aspiring magicians often fall into the trap of buying lots of cool tricks but then never getting round to learn the properly. If you buy a trick, make sure you work on it and practice it until you’re confident with the trick. If you buy one trick at a time you’re not going to waste your money and you’re going to perfect each trick you buy.
You don’t have to go for the easiest tricks, be confident enough to challenge yourself especially if you’ve been doing magic for a while now. With enough practice, you’ll be surprised at how good you can get.
Make Magic Friends – Oliver B – Magician London
Hang out at your local magic store
If you live near a local magic store then spend as much time as there can, make new friends and meet people who are in the same boat as you, therefore, you can practice together and that might make the whole thing a little bit more enjoyable and stressful.
If you aren’t so lucky and you don’t live anywhere near a magic shop then don’t worry you can still join a magic club or society and this is a great way to meet new friends. There are a number of societies which you are able to join who are located all around the UK. Beginners are welcomed in all societies and you will learn so much from rubbing shoulders with experienced magicians. Being involved in a magic society will also keep you updated on any possible lectures for you to attend and even competitions which you could enter.
When you do get to know other magicians, it might be a good idea to try and have regular meetings with them. This way you are able to help each other by giving feedback on tricks and by generally keeping each other inspired and motivated.
Conventions
It’s a good idea to attend magic conventions. You’ll find out about any new tricks that people are doing as well as learn from more experienced magicians.
Becoming a Good Magician – Oliver B – Magician London
Make a Trick Your Own
Just because a DVD, book or even another magician is telling you to do something one way, it doesn’t mean you can’t experiment and try different ways of performing a trick – make the trick your own, it’s cool to invent something of your own!
Psychology of Magic
The difference between an average magician and a great magician is normally just the presentation of the tricks. Give your routines a story, think what is going to get the audience hooked on your performance. “Look at this!” is often not going grab the attention.
You also need to remember that every single movement that you do is going to be watched, therefore, you need to make sure your master the art of sleight of hand, this is vital for your performance and practicing over and over again will be the only may you can master the art of sleight of hand.
Presentation
Like we said earlier, the presentation of a trick can take the trick from average to insane. Therefore, it is absolutely vital that you are able to connect to your audience. Make eye contact with your audience, talk to them and make them feel involved.
It’s also important to be relaxed or at least appear relaxed. If you’re nervous then the audience will feel nervous for you and this could spoil their enjoyment of the trick. I know that it’s easy to say “don’t get nervous”, especially in a tricky situation, but remember that you’re in control.
Being able to speak clearly and effectively is a massive part of the magic, being a magician is not just about performing magic, you need to get an emotional response from your audience. This is helped massively with smooth talking and good presentation.
Public Performances
If you feel comfortable performing in front of the public then that’s great. However, the danger is that you may not have anticipated anything that might possibly go wrong. If you take the opportunity to perform in front of a live audience, you’ll experience disaster from time to time. It happens to even the best magicians and you don’t need to get down about it.
If you’re not yet performing in front of the public and are nervous about the whole thing, that’s understandable. However, just go for it, push yourself, it will only get easier with practice and experience. Don’t be put off if you have one or two bad gigs to start with, just make sure that you learn from your mistakes and work out how you can make it better the next time.
Personality
You have to be different from all the other magicians that are out there, develop your own personality which will make you stand out.
Enjoy it
The most important thing about being a magician is to enjoy every moment of it. No matter what level of magic you’re at, you have to enjoy it! That’s the number one rule of becoming a magician!
Oliver B – Magician London
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