Leodini’s Advice to Amateur Magicians on Building their Repertoires

Before anything else, let me clarify the term amateur as I use it  in this article.

Amateur doesn’t mean a  less capable performer.  I am aware that many amateur magicians have been performing magic for many years. In some cases, a number of them are more proficient performers than some professionals.

I use the word amateur to refer to Filipino magicians who perform magic for free regardless of their abilities and skills.  Occasionally they perform for a fee, but by and large they don’t earn their living from magic.  Magic is not their profession (not their bread-and-butter activity, so to speak).  Thus they are not professionals but rather amateurs.

After that laborious and tortured definition of the word amateur, let me proceed to the main point of today’s article.

Yes, dear readers, I have a point.

And the point is that there is a difference in the size of repertoires between amateur and professional magicians. This point leads to the nagging questions that many amateurs (especially the beginning amateurs) often ask: how many tricks should they learn to get by?

In other words, how big should their repertoire be?

The question reminds me of the often repeated anecdote about the great English magician, David Devant, who  once claimed he only knew eight tricks as opposed to a boastful magician’s 300.

I don’t know if this is an apocryphal tale, or if Devant understated the extent of his repertoire to drive home a point. While it offers a good advice for professionals aspiring for excellence, the advice may not be applicable to amateurs and hobbyists.

A professional magician can theoretically get by with eight tricks quite indefinitely. He performs to a “revolving audience.” That is, he performs for a group of people one night, then he performs for another the next, and so on, with the first group coming back, if at all, several nights later.

The amateurs don’t have this luxury. Most of the time, he performs to the same audience comprising family relations, friends, neighbors, Magic Club members, and business associates. Will he show them the same eight tricks over and over again? I don’t think that would be practical and enjoyable.

To my mind, amateurs and hobbyists have as much pressing need to expand their repertoire as do professionals. However, since their performance requirements are different, the vastness or sparseness of their respective repertoires varies.  The professionals need few but well-mastered tricks, so he can be entertaining. The amateurs need a bunch, so he doesn’t repeat himself.

My advice to the hobbyists is this: stop counting tricks. Why limit your growth as a performer? Learn as many as you can.
Make it easy for yourself, though. For example, learn four tricks at a time, so as not to overwhelm and frustrate yourself. Try four new tricks every month. Give yourself a goal to attain. Then, when the new tricks are already performable, go out and perform them. Meantime, you are researching and developing your next four routines.

Research and development is an essential strategy for growth. Even giant Microsoft, with all its successes, continues to spend money, time and manpower for Research and Development (R & D).

Why don’t hobbyist magicians take their R & D as seriously? Keep studying and adding four tricks to your arsenal. Add  only to your act tricks you can perform well. If you can’t get the techniques down pat yet, they should stay in your R & D and not added to your working repertoire.

If you consistently follow this strategy, in a short while you will have an arsenal of tricks you are confident of performing. The greater is your range, the more confident you will be.

To the professionals, I don’t have any advice. They know better than I.

Stay magical,

Leodini

www.leodini.com