Routining – The Formal Side of the Equation

On By Justin HighamIn Cards, Experience, Professionalism, Routining, Rules, Situations, Uncategorized1 Comment

We have looked at the multi-dimensional world of routining for the informal performer. In that world there are fewer formulae and fixed ways of looking at routining, because informally one is not doing long routines for captive audiences, but at most linking tricks individually or in pairs for people and groups who may not have asked for or expected a magic show. As mentioned there, we might produce the four Aces and then do a trick with them, but we won’t do a five-minute routine of Ace tricks if we know what’s good for us (and our spectators). To do so would be to end up ‘putting on a show’ and dominating a situation where, probably, all people wanted to see at most were a couple of card tricks as part of the broader social interaction. It’s equivalent to someone asking ‘How are you?’ and then using them for the next half hour as a surrogate therapist.

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The Multi-Dimensional World of Routining

On By Justin HighamIn Cards, Experience, Learning, Routining, SituationsLeave a comment

As soon as you learn more than one piece of magic, the question arises as to what order to do the tricks in. Of course with two tricks it isn’t hard; you just do whichever trick feels right, first. However, as you develop a repertoire over the months and years this approach to routining – doing tricks in whichever order feels right – remains the core approach. Other factors such as choreography and logistics become more significant the more one develops magically, and the professional must be acutely aware of peaks and troughs of impact; but the artistic and intuitive side of the equation remains strongly significant.

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Technical Styles and Schools of Magic

On By Justin HighamIn Media, Style3 Comments

Imagine going into your local McDonald’s. A bow-tied maître d’ with a paper hat leads you to a white-clothed table where you sit down and are given menus written in Italian on parchment paper. You order (as best you can) burgers, which come served in Chinese rice bowls. You order some wine; you are told to go to a service counter to order it where it is served in a polystyrene cup with a straw. You finish your meal with strawberry ice cream served in a cheap plastic tub. During the meal they are playing loud Mexican music, and the staff are wearing 50s style American outfits while sporting curly fake moustaches and tattoos, and talking with upperclass British accents. To say the least one would find this experience disconcerting!

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10 Rules for Magicians

On By Justin HighamIn Experience, Learning, Rules, Situations2 Comments

Rules are like inflatable armbands when a child is learning to swim: once you can swim the armbands become a hindrance. Once we start to become competent at magic we develop an intuitive sense of when to do certain things and when not to; continuing to think rigidly in terms of ‘rule #7 says such and such’ will hinder us. But when we are starting out our knowledge is less sophisticated and benefits from general guidance in the form of simple rules. The truth of many of these rules still resonates for years to come.

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Why We Aim for Professionalism

On By Justin HighamIn Experience, Learning, Media, Professionalism, PsychologyLeave a comment

The difference between the casual card-trick doer watching YouTube and the amateur or professional magician, is that the latter always uses correct grips and positions with the cards and props, as well as purposeful choreography, patter, presentation and misdirection. The former simply muddles through using more or less homemade handling. In every field there are right and wrong ways, whether it’s golf swings, piano chord-changes or chess openings. The casual hobbyist is either unaware of their ignorance (understandable particularly when a youngster) or willfully ignorant through insufficient interest to do things properly. No harm is done if people just want to whack a ball, play Scott Joplin badly, or bluff their way through a chess game or card trick.

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Psychology of Conjuring – Part 3

On By Justin HighamIn Cards, Experience, Learning, Patter, Practice, Psychology, SituationsLeave a comment

In the first two parts of this series (Part 1 and Part 2) we looked at patter and misdirection in terms of their psychological impact on spectators. Using patter is so much more than reciting words (when performing informally we don’t usually recite anything at all): we have to use the right words in the right way, both to connect with people and misdirect them effectively. The subtlety and complexity of this task comes to light when we acknowledge that everyone we perform for, and every situation, is different. The more one is aware of this difference, the harder it is to produce satisfactory results, but the better those results will be. This is why at top levels in any art form we have the pained and self-loathing artist, whereas at the bottom, anything goes and everyone is happy doing a slapdash job. Probably the best approach for the everyday magician is the middle path: concerned and interested, but not obsessive about getting it right.

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Psychology of Conjuring – Part 2

On By Justin HighamIn Experience, Learning, Patter, Psychology, SituationsLeave a comment

In Part 1 of this series we looked at how patter forms a link between ourselves and our magic on the one hand, and our spectators. If nothing else, patter justifies what we do. In everyday life there is normally no reason, for example, to thread a finger ring onto a pencil and then look at it! Only a child playing a make-believe game would do such a thing. But if the ring represents, say, Houdini, and the pencil, prison bars (or the two objects, and the magic done with them, illustrate particles in quantum physics, say) then we have a reason for doing something that in everyday life has no purpose (making a ring appear on a pencil). It would, in fact, make more sense to use special props – a magic wand and/or magic ring – as then we are demonstrating the special properties of those specific props, properties that borrowed rings and pencils do not have.

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Psychology of Conjuring – Part 1

On By Justin HighamIn Experience, Learning, Patter, Psychology, Situations1 Comment
Misdirection is all around us. In business it’s better to offer customers a payment plan than to tell them when to pay. Not only are we ‘offering’, but ‘payment plan’ is not just payment; the mind is misdirected by the word ‘plan’ which waters down the idea of payment. In casinos they use plastic chips to help distance players from the idea of betting with money. In the media, the superficial far outweighs the serious when it comes to reader attention (just look at what news stories are trending right now). It could be said that a psychologist is someone who academically studies how other people use psychology in real life, such as con artists, card cheats, shell-game operators, fraudulent psychics, pickpockets, and magicians.

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Reading Situations: Why Strong Magic is Not Always the Goal

On By Justin HighamIn Experience, Learning, SituationsLeave a comment

For the amateur performer, choosing the right trick for the right context is key to doing magic effectively. We may know some great tricks, but if we don’t speak our audience’s language, for example, then we may have to find some alternatives or get creative. While ‘strong’ magic is usually preached as the gospel, there is another pathway to performing based on quite different criteria.

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Not So Familiar: Patter for Amateurs

On By Justin HighamIn Experience, Media, PatterLeave a comment

A common concern of amateur magicians is how to present magic effectively to friends and family. This includes work colleagues and anyone else with whom one comes into regular contact. On the surface it may seem the easiest audience to do magic for, but in fact it is the hardest when it comes to patter and presentation. People who know one’s usual vocabulary, interests, body language and ways of expressing oneself can easily smell a rat the moment one veers away from this ‘normal self’ into the realms of magician’s patter and unusual actions; all of a sudden making more or less eye contact than normal or bringing up subjects they know you have no real interest in.

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