When you are a commercial close up magician and you want to introduce a new effect or routine into your working repertoire, you would no doubt look to practise it for some time at home before taking it out ‘on the road’.
There may be technical aspects of the trick that need to be mastered, such as moves which you are unfamiliar with, and the general handling and mechanics of presenting the effect must be rendered as smooth as possible.
So the physical and sequential handling can be honed in the privacy of your practice room at home, but there are some aspects of any new piece which are much harder to rehearse. Let’s take a look at some of them.
While some tricks require only the performer to handle the props and to progress the action, others require a spectator to get involved with the handling. I’m not referring to when a spectator has to simply take a card or examine a prop or shuffle a deck, as all those things are fairly predictable in the way they will be executed. But on other occasions, a spectator may be required to carry out a whole series of actions at the request of the performer, and in lone practice it is almost impossible to imagine exactly how that might turn out in performance.
Audience members who are not used to following instructions may misinterpret the performer’s requests and consequently inadvertently mess up the sequence. If you as the performer are watching what they are doing, you might be able to correct any errors and thus keep the trick on course, but what if the instructions are being given while your back is turned?
Another aspect of performance that is hard to practise is when a spectator is actively involved at the moment where a move needs to be executed. They might be holding something such as a piece of rope stretched out between their two hands, a situation that is hard to replicate when you are on your own.
Or then again, some tricks require a spectator to make a random choice, or a series of choices, that have a direct impact on what you need to do next to proceed with the effect. Although you can imagine in practice what a spectator might say, you are slightly pre-warned because you are actually making the decisions, whereas in a live situation you have no idea what the helper will say until the moment they utter it. So, again, it’s hard to practise it.
And here are some more….if you do a watch steal, how do you practise that without someone with you? Misdirection – the timing and execution is almost impossible to rehearse on your own. Performing with borrowed items such as a mobile phone – with so many different types, sizes and designs, it’s hard to be prepared for all types.
The upshot of all of these factors is that there will be some tricks that can only be practised up to a certain point, after which you simply have to put them into your repertoire and try them out a few times on real people. There is no doubt that you can learn a huge amount very quickly through live presentation, and if you think about what you are doing, you can adjust and improve as you go along. Commercial close up offers you the opportunity to repeat a trick several times in quick succession and so is perfect for honing new material.