How to Become A Magician - It's Never Too Late
There are some reasons why people stop doing magic tricks. One person does not understand how someone can turn their backs to magic after dabbling in it and discovering what it is about. The majority of people drop magic very quickly, but some continue with it and try to master it. The average life span of a person that is beginning in magic is only 6 months. There are 4 steps to learning magic. The discovery of a secret is the first one.
Read more: Why People Stop Doing Magic Tricks
Parents often have difficulty deciding what to put into party bags, or goodie bags, for children’s parties. They are often faced with the difficult decision of choosing a large item or several smaller items and both are with pros and cons. Magic sets are perfect options for children because each item is fascinating magic for children. The benefits of magic tricks are that they are budget friendly, interesting for children, and appropriate for a wide range of ages. There are several magic sets available for purchase and parents can also assemble their own.
Read more: Magic Sets for Party Bags – The Best Buys & How to Make Your Own
Stage magic offers a chance to create a sense of wonder and enchantment for an audience. There is always something going on behind the scenes in stage magic illusions. Have you ever wondered how stage magic is performed? Then the following books are a great place to begin; How to be an Illusionist by JC Sum and Modern Illusions by Tom Palmer. By reading these books one can get a better understanding of the magic happening behind the scenes. If one has the ambition and drive in following this path, they just might become the next great Houdini.
Read more: How to Build Stage Magic illusions
Magic kits are no longer for kids. Many of the best kits on the market are in fact targeted with adults in mind. One of the first is the one from Criss Angel’s Mindfreak line. He give great step by step and it is designed to help not only beginners but those more in the craft. There is also another one designed for close magic, specifically through sleight of hand actions. The last, called Dynamo, is strictly for adults and allows one to impress through updated skills and tricks.
Key Takeaways:
“We’re pleased to tell you, magic sets for adults, do exist, and they’re pretty amazing if we may say so ourselves.”
Read more: http://blog.magicshop.co.uk/2017/11/magic-sets-for-adults.html
Learning magic and becoming a performing magician takes a lot of time, effort, and certainly skill. But there’s something else that every magician must include in his or her bag of tricks. Motivation. Of course it took motivation to get to the point where you can perform even some magic, which definitely puts you above most people who talk about learning a little bit of magic. But to take your act to the next level, and start striving for professional status, motivation needs to be just as strong as skill.
Key Takeaways:
“The next step is not about tricks at all. You already know enough. It’s about motivation.”
To become a magician, you obviously need to learn magic. But what does that mean, exactly?
I’ll tell you what some very experienced magicians told me when I first decided to take the leap into becoming a magician. And it was a terrific piece of advice – for starting. That advice was “Tarbell.”
In the 1920s, the magician, Harlan Tarbell, started a magic course. He would deliver a kit for each new lesson that contained the various props for that lesson.
Theses days, you wouldn’t be easily able to get ahold of the bits and bobs for the kits. But you can VERY easily get started with the Tarbell course immediately. Just CLICK HERE to grab a pdf of the original 60 lessons from the mail order course.
Ultimately, over the decades from 1930 through 1995, the Tarbell course was printed in hardback volumes. In total, the entire collection now includes 8 volumes.
What is great about the Tarbell Course is that it isn’t just about teaching tricks. That is how too many people go about it. And there is so much more to becoming a magician that just learning tricks.
Tarbell says: “I could teach you 50 tricks and you would be happy to know them — and perhaps you would think you were a Magician when you had learned these tricks. I know, however, that you wouldn’t be a Magician.” He’s right. A magician needs to understand more than mechanics. Just as important (in fact MORE important) are things like:
Understanding WHY magic works. What is going on the a spectator’s mind that makes things seem like magic?
Being able to perform. A magician is an entertainer. So if you are not a performer – at least on some level – then you are not a magician.
Taking the concept of “exposure” seriously. Exposure is the term used to describe revealing the secrets behind a magic trick. Yes, it is super easy these days for people to just go to YouTube and learn some of these secrets. But a magician should not be the person giving these secrets away (unless you are teaching a magician in training or selling magic to people who want to learn).
So the Tarbell course includes everything that goes into becoming a magician, going much deeper than just the teaching of tricks.
The original correspondence course was 60 lessons covering stage illusions to close-up magic and everything in between. that also includes discussions of stagecraft, developing a show, making your audience laugh and marketing yourself. The electronic version HERE (you can choose instant pdf download or CDROM) includes that original 60 lesson course (almost 1300 pages and nearly 2900 illustrations).
Some time after that original course was developed (in the 1920s), the Tarbell course was redone in order to create that 8-volume hardback series I mentioned above. That was called The Tarbell Course In Magic; For The Professional, Amateur and Beginner. Many other lessons were added to the original 60 lessons. So you can’t really directly compare the original course with the hard cover books.
Speaking of the hardback Tarbell Course, you can get yourself a set from eBay (like I did :-)), Amazon (see the link in the pic on the right) or from a number of used book dealers.
So even though there are lots of ways to learn magic, Tarbell is one of the best ways to start. It has been for almost a hundred years.