photo credit: cesarastudillo

1. a natural passion for magic especially developed since childhood;
2. to become a professional magician in order to learn a living;
3. to entertain family and friends;
4. to impress ladies.

The last three reasons are extrinsically motivated while the first is one is intrinsically motivated. Humans generally want to possess power beyond their physical abilities. Being able to perform magic not only gives the audience the impression but also satisfies the performer’s imagination that he/she possesses some supernatural powers beyond his/her natural self.

 

 In this blog, I intend to share what I have learned about magic. The types of magic, where to learn magic, the process of learning magic and how to perform magic.

If you intend to learn magic, you will first have to choose what kind of magic do you want to learn and perform. Weird as it may sound, there are people who only intend to learn but not perform them. These are merely curiosity seekers who are merely interested in the know-hows, or perhaps worse, people who seek to expose tricks where professional magicians spend their time and money to learn, and perform to earn their living. On the other hand, it could be hobbyists who love magic but are too busy to put in the necessary time to master the tricks well enough in order to perform them.

Enough said! As an introduction to those who are new to magic, magics are categorised into the following:

(1) Stage magic are magics performed on a stage to a big audience easily from a number of 50 to hundreds. We are largely familiar with such magic when we first watched magic shows broadcasted on television. Such acts rely heavily on props and more often than not, require a stage assistant. Some common props are the magic wand, hats, doves and rings. Hypnotism followed by levitation and sawing of a lady assistant are common stage magic we have witnessed since childhood.

(2) Close-up magic are performed to a very small number of audience most suitably on a one-to-one basis. Unlike stage magic where the magician is kept at a distance high up on a stage, far away from the audience, there is a lot of interaction between the magician and the audience in a close-up magic. A close-up magician is usually engaged by organisers of dinner-and-dance or a cocktail party to entertain the guests. The magician would have to walk around and mingle with the guests, strike up conversation with them and entertain them with magic. This is the kind of magic that non-professional or hobbyists are interested in learning. Being a hobbyist myself, we are not seeking to perform magic for a living except to entertain ourselves and our friends. However I would not deny that at a certain point in time, a hobbyist may have refined his/her skills well enough to perform them in public.

(3) Parlour magic is quite similar to close-up magic except that it is meant for a slightly bigger crowd of 10 to 20 audience. The magic tricks employed could be those used for close-up magic as well. The difference depends very much on how the magician manage his/her audience.

(4) Street magic as it is called are magic tricks performed to strangers on the street. In performing street magic, you may approach just one stranger one-to-one or perhaps a group of people. In the process, you may even attract a big crowd. The magic tricks employed are usually that of close-up magic. In the event that you manage to attract a big crowd, make sure that you are not performing tricks where the execution of your sleight of hands are proficient enough where it cannot be seen from all angles.

(5) Illusions are magic tricks usually involving some disappearing act followed by some reappearance somewhere else. As the name implied, an illusion act is merely an … illusion. Famous acts such as “The Disappearance of the Statue of Liberty” and “Crossing of the Great Wall of China” by David Copperfield are examples of illusions. However, the employment of camera tricks in an illusion is frowned upon by professional magicians.