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The Art of Practice

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How do you practice your magic? In what ways do you rehearse the routines and segments that make up the various parts of your show? If you asked any number of magicians, I am sure you would get numerous variations in answers. Simply stated, we all have our own ways and methods. However, are there lessons to be learned and applied here when it comes to practicing your magic? These are the topics I want to try and share with you.

I think it is safe to say that in order to get better at any magic that you do, you simply must practice it to get the feel for it. You simply can not expect to pick up an effect and start performing it the next day. Magic as an art form deserves each of us to take the time necessary to actually not only learn what we are doing, but to also perform it well to make it an entertaining experience.

I think the first point to share here is that there is a big difference between practice and rehearsals. Knowing and defining these differences can help any magician become a better performer. My personal feeling is that you must actually do both practice and rehearsal.

When working on a new act or routine, you will need to practice first to get the moves down for segments within the act. You then will always want to rehearse the full act start to finish with costuming, music, etc. before ever actually performing it for a live audience. So a combination of both I think is essential.

When one practices, one is really more concerned with learning the technical moves of what it is you are doing. This can mean learning a single move or applying moves to generate a sequence. The idea here is to get these moves down and develop the correct technical ability that is needed. In a lot of cases, a mirror can work well for this as it allows you to see what you are doing.

Using a mirror is fine for practice but do not get to dependent upon it. The mirror can become a bad habit if used too much because you 1) see everything in reverse of what really is seen by the audience and 2) you start to become used to seeing the image in front of you that it throws you off when it is not there in real performance. I use a video camera instead as I know I am no longer performing for the mirror and I can set it up to record from different angles.

However, there needs to be a point where you stop practicing and move on to rehearsing. Some of you may be wondering what the difference is or if there really is a difference at all.

A proper rehearsal is one in which the full entire routine or act is done from start to finish utilizing the right props, music and even costuming. You are rehearsing the entire act as if you were actually going to perform it live for the public. It is also important to note here that when rehearsing you simply must use everything you would use in the actual live performance. If you are wearing tuxedo pants, then rehearse in those pants and not jeans. Even the smallest changes, can be magnified when it comes to the live performance.

Another point that relates to this topic is the notion of a cold practice. A cold practice simply means that you do the act or routine once and only once. You can do this when you get home from work etc. The idea is that you are simulating a real experience. In a real experience, you do not have the chance of a "do over". This cold practice simulates that and starts to show you if you are ready to perform it for laypeople.

I hope these few simple ideas and tips may be of help to you as you continue to practice and rehearse your own magic to develop creative routines. As always, I encourage you the readers to let me know your thoughts. So if you have any thoughts on my articles or suggestions or comments, please feel free to e-mail me directly at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. I would love to hear from
you.
 

Category: Beginner Area