Hi,

Here are some of my thoughts on impromptu performances:

The ‘amateur magician’… that describes about 94% of the magicians in any magic community. That does not mean that the amateur is no good. In fact, many competent magicians readily agree that some amateurs are much better than the ‘pros’, magic-wise at least.

Being an ‘amateur magician’ is just a name tagged onto someone who does not make magic his living but manages to show magic to his friends, family, clients, associates, sometimes complete strangers and of course, other magicians.

This post is specifically written for the amateur in mind, the weekend magician who enjoys performing informally for friends, family and anyone else who will watch.

Most of the magic that amateurs do is confined to impromptu close-up. At least, that is what the conditions seem to be. But good close up magicians are hardy stuck in an impromptu situation because they always have something on them that can create good magic. I am not saying that you must carry a hand chopper or set of cups and balls with you, but a TT and a couple of right sized coins can do wonders.

Here are some guidelines for the amateur performer that I feel will improve your performance immediately if you take the trouble to apply them!

- Be prepared
- Be disciplined
- Choose the most conducive performing environment. (location, sound, lighting)
- Your Act


Be Prepared

This is the Boy Scouts motto. An impromptu act is actually not impromptu. This may seem contradicting but actually your magic is not impromptu. It is the setting that appears impromptu. E.g. At a party, your friend asks you to perform some magic for his/her friends. To your friend’s friends, the performance seems off the cuff, but actually you have a well-rehearsed act all ready to perform.

The first thing to do is to choose items that seem impromptu. Cards, coins, notes, paper, rubber bands, handkerchiefs, pens, rope etc. are fine to work by. Please do not take out something that looks like a magicians prop, like a dove pan or square circle production box. Some say that even a deck of cards seem like going too far but I feel that it is natural for a magician to carry a small deck of cards in his pocket and furthermore, most people’s house would have a deck available.

As a start, about four to eight routines would be ideal. You can work your way up when you are more experienced and confident. Definitely, three routines would be the very least. Choose your effects, adding as much variety as possible and practice them well. Always practise them as a set so that you will get a smooth flow from each routine to the other.


Be Disciplined

“Most magicians when they perform close-up magic simply improvise as they go along. One trick follows another as they think of it. Sometimes the initial show builds to a climax. More usually the last trick is the least impressive of all, and is the last because it happens to be the last trick the performer thinks of.” ~ Milbourne Christopher

This seems to be the hardest rule for any one to follow. This is because we sometimes get carried away or our ego gets the better of us. Being disciplined means knowing when to stop. If you have only a four routine act, stop after you four routines are over.

DO NOT try to improvise on the spot. Chances are, you are going mess up and spoil the brilliant image you have built up for yourself over the last 15 minutes. Trust me, many good magicians have ‘gone down’ this way.
Often, as practicing magicians, we constantly have one or two effects that we are good at and about a dozen that we are currently experimenting with. When someone asks to see some magic, we will naturally do the routines that we are most familiar with. The problem arises when we have exhausted our ‘repertoire’ of well-rehearsed tricks and are asked to do more. Our mind then searches for tricks that we have tried out before but never mastered, the result, usually not too good.


Choose the Most Conducive Performing Environment

A lot of you are probably thinking that you have no control over the place you perform. That is technically untrue. You just have to learn how to exploit the environment to your fullest advantage. Here are a few things to look out for:

- Try not to perform with a mirror behind you. Besides just eliminating any chances for ‘flashes’, a mirror can actually be very distracting for the audience. E.g. people may actually try to look through the mirror to watch and see if you ‘flash’ even if your act is angle proof. Reflections from light can also be disturbing to the eyes.

- As far as possible, have a table available as this will allow you a wider range of magic to perform. It can also serve as a barrier against the audience. If you feel that your right side is ‘unprotected’ from certain moves, a table may be able to shield the sleight.

- Perform in a corner or at least against a wall. This automatically shields you from hazardous angles without directly asking audiences to shift to the front. Never tell someone that you cannot perform with them behind you, this will lower your image of being a great magician.

- If the room is two noisy, such as a stereo blasting in the background, see if you can have it turned down or move to another room.


Your Act

Here are a few pointers for structuring your impromptu act:

- Have a suitable opener, closer and encore item. It is advisable to make your first routine short and snappy (about 1 min long) in order to get the attention and interest of your audience.

- Make sure that each routine is stronger and more entertaining than the preceding one. It does not necessarily have to be more difficult technically but the effect and entertainment value should be greater.

- Prepare items suitable for table work as well as standing/in the hands type of magic. It would be ideal it your items can be performed either way.


If you follow the above guidelines and apply them in your next ‘impromptu’ performance, there will be a marked improvement. Not because you spent more time practising your sleight of hand but because you applied proper techniques.


Best,

J C Sum

Well, this post cannot come any more timely than this. B)

I am certain there are many, many, MANY of us who will be performing a thing or 2 over the next 2 days to friends, family, or that cute girl that a friend of a friend bought to the 1,001 parties that's happening all over the country. ;)

Great post! B)

Wow. That was a well written post with really good tips. B)

Thanks for the tip!

Very well written, I'm enlightened.

Good advice.

Thanx for the excellent advice JC SUM!
Good wakeup call for people like me.

Btw...Ure really J C SUM?? :!!: Cool!

Thnx! That was great help,never knew how i should put a routine together.

No, it's actually David Copperfield pretending to be JC Sum on SMC :lol: Ya lah... it's him. Unless it's an intelligent monkey at his keyboard logged into SMC... I'm just joking!!! :ph43r: :ph43r: :ph43r:

Anyways! Yes, I totally enjoyed this article. Full of wisdom and gems, much insight too from someone who's 'been there, done that' ;) Thanks for sharing this with us on the forums, JC!

ning

Gee, thanks JC for all the tips and advice.

Thank you very much,inteligent ninja monkey:ph43r: !

When i first started magic a year ago, i focused on card magic, refusing to do anything else. now, a year later i decided that that was a stupid move, and after 4 months of no magic, i decided to start again, but now with other kinds of magic. this wonderful post has enlightend me to start impromtu magic.

I repeat, Thanks very much you beautiful monkey you! :wub:

Cheers, Rishi

thanks for the post. enjoyed reading it. and it certainly helped me too.


thanks again! ^_^


stuart

wow it actually help me a lot . Thank your for your good advice

Wow, thanks man. Totally enjoyed reading it.

that's good tips for impromptu tricks...
i've beneffited from it!!! =)

Another sincere thanks jcsum for taking the time to share.
I would definitely take it into account when scheduling any acts

Wow, every word is gold up there! Thank you so much, JC Sum!!! I want to thank you so much for spending the time to write that article for amateur magicians like us!

I've found that a table is also useful as a "centre of focus". Especially when you have laid the deck down on the table and are talking for a while, it seems absolutely fair as if nothing has happened even though you might have just done something.

I sometimes let it plateau for a while then put in a kicker. Has anyone tried that before?

Has anyone had any issues with attracting attention before the routine? If you are at youre friends, you might be competing against people conversing etc for attention and sometimes people do not really come out of it. Any advice?

Thanks
CSJ

I only recently discovered this post by JC through a link from a post in MMF. Golden advice not only for beginners but also really applicable to seasoned 'pros' and anyone in between

Great tips. I think this post really helped me improve since I last read it. ^_^

Hiya

Is it too late to say thanks ???

Thanks

Lordjim