Amateur Magician vs Professional Magician

The Cafe is in serious need of a redesign.

So, there's a lot of talk and trash on The Magic Cafe (as well as every other site out there) between professional magicians and amateur ones. Personally I feel caught in the middle over this whole issue. On one hand I'm a complete and utter hobbyist, but on the other hand I can kinda see what people mean when they say that, really, only a pro is able to give a truly informed opinion on how a particular trick plays for laypeople.

I'm at a crossroads. I really want/need to develop myself as a magician, I know I've got better technique than a lot of pros, it's all that other stuff I need to work on :).

I've spoken to magicians who tell me that the best way to become completely confident in front of an audience is to take the plunge and go pro. I'm not so sure that's the best way, though. Let me explain why.

Go pro?

Before I talk too much, I should address the realistic prospect that guys like me might need to go professional, in order to quickly gain experience of countless performances. Otherwise, you run the risk of becoming one of THOSE GUYS who learns magic but has no new audiences. With regards to performance, you defininitely gain a lot more opportunities as a pro than you ever do as an amateur. You're free to refine the same effect performance, developing that sense of confidence and assuredness with your material. It opens so many doors to you, as a performer. This is the real secret. This is what really matters.

Being a professional tends to ease the actual process of performance, too. The very fact that you are there as a professional magician can make it easier to approach a new group of spectators. I know that I have certainly found this to be the case from my own limited experience of professional magic. It also seems easier to get those big reactions that we all love when you are there in a professional capacity: your magic insantly gains more status and is more likely to be accepted by the audience. These are big points.

As a hobby

Could I just get one thing straight: the majority of magicians are amateurs, right? I don't think it's just a small minority, either. We're talking something like ninety percent. And you know what? That's okay. Personally, I actually really do enjoy doing magic as a hobby. It means I get to sample everything which makes magic so much fun: freaking out friends, meeting new people, and all the satisfaction of working on new sleights. It's just that I don't have to do all that other stuff like hassling sales calls, filling out tax returns, long drives to gigs. That stuff sucks.

Besides, if we're honest with ourselves, the world could probably do with a few less professional magicians. Many of the so-so hobbyists who end up doing magic on a full-time basis make it a more crowded marketplace for those guys who are genuinely 'the real deal'. I've always been of the opinion that if you want to dip your toe into the world of professional magic, then you'd better be bloody good at it. Obviously, a lot of people think differently!

If you stay as a hobbyist, there are genuine upsides. You keep the energy, magic stays as your love rather than becoming a source of cash. You enjoy creating magic for the sake of the art itself (sorry to use that term, I hate it). Because, in reality, no-one should really pay magicians to do their thing. Unless the guy is really, really good, there is no way to rationalise the fees which magicians charge.

When pursuing magic as a hobby I don't have to suck up to potential clients, I can just create something wonderful. As a hobbyist, that in itself is enough to constitute success. I don't know really, it's just that there is something within me which resonates with such a simple vision.

When I think about what would make me proud? If, in six months or a year, I wasn't a professional, but I was a fucking great amateur, that would give me much more pride in myself. If I was the type of guy who, any time he wants, be able to head out to a bar or club, and just show people magic and blow them away. I'm talking balls out, straight up, ripping up the club. Being the star of the whole damn show.

Because that is the cool stuff. Not going table to table at a restaurant, it's about going out there and being able to kick total ass in the real world. Forget the money: if you are that good, people will offer you money to come and do magic. This whole thing isn't about being a pro or an amateur, I think it's about being active in your magic. It's as simple as that.

So with everything considered, which route is the best to take? It seems obvious that the best way to improve my magic is through rigorous performance practice: this can be done as an amateur, you just need to be proactive about it. I'd need to actively seek out new places to perform. This might entail hanging out at coffee shops, parks, and bars with the intent of performing magic. Believe it or not, this is something I've never really done before. Oh well.

Stop Wasting Time!

I really need to stop wasting my time on this magic blog. If becoming a truly excellent magician was really such an easy thing for us to do, I'm sure that I'd have done something about it a long time ago.

If I was a great magic performer, I wouldn't be sat at this keyboard, in all honesty: I'd probably be out at some fashionable a nightclub, surrounded by dozens of hot babes and young celebrities, performing dazzling magic and having drinks bought for me all night. If it were that simple, that is what we would all be doing, right?

Because that, my friends, is the ultimate dream. Crafting the best, most entertaining performance you can, and then reaping the benefits of that endeavour. Lord knows I'm not there yet. I'm writing a blog, FFS.

The Start of This Blog
It is time that I directed all of my efforts towards becoming a performer who is truly something special. I want to be able to go up to someone, and show them the greatest thing they've ever seen.

There, I said it.

So What Holds You Back?
Let's look at myself, as a performer. I think that my sleight of hand is very good, certainly good enough. Layman wouldn't know what hit 'em. Yet whatever the case, I'm sure that there have been far better performers with far less robust sleight of hand than myself. Why am I not scaling those heights?

The problem is that, secretly, I'm just a regular guy. I lack enough performance experience to be able to deliver what I deem a consistent level of performance. I have been known to get nervous, even flub moves occasionally. I'm just no pro.

So what do I actually need to develop in order to truly deliver an effective performance? I'd say what I'm missing is very simple:

• the ability to confidently and engagingly present the trick to the audience.
• a lack of dead time in the performance, a general leanness to the whole presentation
• be able to give the effect enough clarity so that the magic is actually experienced
• an avenue through which these things can be extensively practised.
• the necessary conviction to step out of my comfort zone and properly try this stuff

In other words, the stuff which you can't learn off a DVD! Haha. It wouldn't be so funny if it weren't so true. But seriously, how can a guy like myself develop all these skills. Hell, CAN a guy like me develop these skills. Answers please.

So how can I learn this new set of skills? I think that the answer simply has to be through performance. Anything else is chump-talk. In the practice room, you only learn half of what it takes to be a magician. It's out in the real world where you learn the other 50%.

I need to stop wasting my time. I need to get out there. I need to start this blog!

Clear Thinking

There's a lot of cluttered thinking surrounding magic. As a hobbyist magician, I've found it's easy to stay on a treadmill where we learn tricky new sleights, buy new effects as they are released, yet in some ways miss what magic performance is actually about. In magic, as with other things, it is the case that by focusing upon the details we lose the ability to focus upon the general picture.

This is a hard thing to swallow, but we all kinda know that this is the case. Let's go back to absolute basics here. Assuming that I want to:

• perform lots of magic
• be hugely entertaining
• feel happy doing it

surely it seems that I need to focus my attention not just on the effect itself but also how to best deliver that effect? When we think of those AAA+ magical performers (I'm thinking of guys like Ricky Jay, Harry Lorayne, Whit Haydn, Tommy Wonder, Dani DaOrtiz, Gregory Wilson, etc)  it seems that their uniting feature is not their sheer technical prowess. Surely, their uniting feature is they can all effectively deliver their magic to the audience. They can communicate it in a way which engages the audience.

This isn't rocket science, guys.

What do I mean by delivery of the magic? Well, you know, it's the stuff which most magicians are happy to ignore:

• Knowing what to say
• Having a clear tone of voice
• Nervousness
• How to approach someone you've never met before to show them your magic
• What to do if things go wrong
• How to build to a finale

and so on and so on. 

There is maybe a little bit of discussion out there on things like this, but it is so infrequent when compared to the cries of Why the Dribble Pass is an Illogical Move and other such bullsh*t debates which so completely miss the point. Why the hell is this? Why does no-one choose to talk about these REAL issues? Why haven't L&L publishing and Ellusionist both unleashed monster DVD boxsets with this type of content?

Cos from where I'm sat, it's looking for all the world that the delivery is more important right now than the effect itself. If I can just choose to focus upon delivering a more entertaining performance, I'll feel so much cheerier about my magic!