How to Become a Magician for Beginners (Tips, Links & Videos)
Updated: Dec 25, 2022
Do you want to learn how to become a magician?
Here are five steps to becoming a successful magician and amazing others with your tricks. A professional magician shares his best tips, inside secrets and suggestions for learning the art of magic and becoming a magician.
In this article, you'll learn how to become a magician:
Biggest Secret of the World's Best Magicians
Let's dive in and learn how to become a magician.
The 5 Steps To Becoming A Magician
Becoming is similar to learning any other skill set or sport. Magicians must practice frequently and expand their knowledge. Let's take a look at the five steps it takes to become a magician.
Here are the five steps to becoming a successful magician:
Learn Magic Tricks, Secrets & Magician Theories - Learn various magic tricks and magician concepts behind the tricks.
Practice, Practice, Practice - Practice and perfect your tricks and try them out on your audience.
Connections and Feedback - Reach out to other magicians and magician communities. Get feedback from magicians you trust.
Perform As Often As You Can - We all get nervous performing magic! The more time you spend performing, the easier and more polished you become.
Repeat - Keep at it!!! The difference between a good magician and a great magician is the amount of time you dedicate to performing and improving.
The art of magic is technical by nature.
A magician practices hours to learn complicated moves that an audience will never see! So, how do magicians become magicians? The obvious answer is that after hours of practicing magic, they start performing magic tricks.
Are you interested in speeding up the process of becoming a magician? Science has a few thoughts on how magicians should practice new magic tricks and sleights. |
As you progress in the art of magic, you understand the importance of nuances, subtleties, and what's going on in your spectator's mind.
It is more complicated than it appears because becoming a successful magician is more than just knowing tricks. Successful magicians use great storytelling and unique personality to shine and connect with their audience.
These skills take years to master, be patient, and you too, can become a master magician.
Let's talk about the first step, learning new magic tricks.
Step 1. How to Learn Magic
The first thing you must do is immerse yourself in a world of magic. Learn all the magic tricks you can! Read, watch and listen to every magic book, podcast or magic instructional video you can get your hands on.
In the early years of magic, it's all about the tricks.
Get a well-rounded knowledge of magic secrets and learn all kinds of magic. With time, you'll understand how to follow your instinct and discover which tricks resonate with you, your style and your personality.
How to learn magic tricks and magician theory.
How do you learn the secrets to magic's most incredible tricks? Here is a look at the various ways to learn magic's methods.
Learning from magic books
Hundreds of magic books are available for magicians at all skill levels.
One of the most significant benefits of learning from books is that you aren't influenced by the teacher's style, patter or character.
I have always been a big fan of learning from a magic book. As a child of magic, the gold standard magic book series was The Tarbell Course in Magic and Mark Wilson Course in Magic. I highly recommend both for beginner magicians and magic enthusiasts.
In these books, you'll learn card tricks, coin, money, close-up magic, stage magic, and even some illusions.
Both of these books are many years old and still available to this day-- for a reason! Never overlook books-- you'll discover a lifetime of inspiration in old magic books. Keeping an eye on the past has been part of every successful magician's history.
Learning magic on YouTube
YouTube and videos are excellent ways to learn the art of magic. Watching another magician perform is much easier to learn the nuances of complicated magic moves, sleights or tricks.
Video is a valuable way to learn magic tricks, but remember to add your personality and presentation to these magic tricks instead of copying.
Many magicians on YouTube are teaching great magic, most notably Canadian magician Jay Sankey. You can also find great tutorials from Chris Ramsay, Brian Brushwood, and Spidey.
Here's a fantastic magic trick called the Coin Through Balloon, which you can learn with household items. Watch below and subscribe to Magician Masterclass on YouTube:
Learn the Coin Through Balloon Routine here: https://www.magicianmasterclass.com/post/coin-through-balloon
Learn magic on magician podcasts
Podcasts are a great way to keep your ear on the pulse of magic. Magician podcasts cover a broad spectrum of magic topics, including business, performance advice, conventions and interviews.
They also can provide long-form conversations with essential topics like magician theory.
Here are a few magician podcasts I recommend:
Magicians Talking Magic Podcast - hosted by Ryan Joyce and Graemazing Reed, who cover magic topics from becoming a better magician and promoting yourself, plus interviews with acclaimed magicians.
Discourse in Magic - host Johan Babins covers various topics and magician interviews. To listen to my episode, Ryan Joyce, click here.
The Magic Word, Scott Wells - Scott covers a lot of magician conventions.
For a complete list of magician podcasts, visit this page.
Here's one of the last episodes of Magicians Talking Magic with magician Joshua Jay.
Where do magicians buy magic tricks?
The age of brick and mortar appears to be coming to an end. There are very few magic shops that you can visit in person and do your magic shopping.
Here in Canada, Canada's oldest magic shop is located in Toronto, and the only other magic shop in Ontario is called KW Magic.
Magic Shops in Canada
Browsers Den of Magic, Toronto https://www.browsersden.com/
KW Magic, Kitchener https://www.kwmagic.com/
After you've learned many magic tricks, it's time to perform. Whether you are presenting a trick for one person or an entire audience, there are some essential steps you need to take first.
Step 2. Perform Your First Magic Trick
Before you perform any trick, you must practice.
Practice the trick endlessly until you can do it in your sleep. How long should you practice? One hundred times more than you think!
The reality is some magic tricks are much easier to perform than others. You have to be able to complete the trick without hesitation or thinking about what's next. Any awkward pauses or delays in your performance will signal to your audience that something isn't quite right. That's why it's critical to practice, practice, practice.
Once you are confident that you are ready, it's time for your first magic show or performance! Remember, it's one thing to know the secret to a magic trick, and it's another thing to perform it.
All successful magicians work tirelessly on their magic tricks by practicing the moves, actions and patter. Patter is the script that you say during a magic trick. When you watch an outstanding magician perform a trick that looks effortless, they have likely presented that trick hundreds of times.
The more you perform magic, the more confident you get.
Each time you show a trick is like sanding the rough edges and making your routine smoother. It will get better and better each time.
Entertaining as a magician requires focus. Magicians who execute the most difficult tricks make it look effortless because they have performed their routines countless times.
However, like every journey, it starts with taking your first step-- and for magic, that's your first magic performance. Get practicing!
Step 3. Connect with other magicians and the magician community.
Discover the magic community and a world of professional magic.
Meeting and collaborating with other magicians is crucial to improving your skills. Only other magicians can provide helpful feedback based on experience. Getting feedback is critical to becoming the best magician you can be.
Plus, you can meet new friends who also share your passion for the art of magic.
Magicians seeking to connect with fellow magicians have several online opportunities, including forums and message boards. There are also in-person meetings, magician associations and annual conventions worldwide.
There is even a magician "Olympics" that happens every three years, called the FISM World Championship of Magic.
Here are a few resources for connecting with other magicians:
Magician Organizations, Clubs & Online resources:
The Magic Cafe: themagiccafe.com - an online magician forum
Reddit: https://reddit/r/magic - online forum
Canadian Association of Magicians: https://cammagic.org/
International Brotherhood of Magicians: https://www.magician.org/
Society of American Magicians: https://www.magicsam.com/
See this page for a complete list of North American magician associations.
Step 4. Perform As Often As You Can
Suppose you want to be a great magician; what's the secret?
You must perform often. Find as many ways to present your magic as possible, including small social gatherings, events, or at school or work.
The secret to being a successful magician and entertainer is performing your magic as often as possible. You need to be confident, and your magic needs to look effortless. When you perform a piece of magic hundreds of times, you understand how to maximize the entertainment value at every moment of the magic trick. Anticipating in advance how spectators react will take your magic to the next level.
You must know every turn, movement and potential misstep of a routine. The only way to earn mastery as a magician is through repetition.
And, of course, magic can also be a business that earns you income-- but that's a conversation for another blog post.
Step 5. Repeat
Repetition and dedication to improving your magic is the biggest secret to being a great magician.
Whether you are building a magic show or presenting a few card tricks, these five steps are essential to building confidence and perfecting your skills, but the best thing you can do is do it repeatedly.
Getting feedback from people you trust is essential.
Don't get stuck in a bubble of your ego. Understand that not every one of your performances will be the best. Learn from your mistakes and get back up and do it again.
Your job as a magician is to inspire wonder in the imagination of your audience. Every time you perform a magic trick, that impact will become more robust and polished.
To become a great magician, you must perform magic a lot!
Never forget that the real magic happens in your audience's mind; don't make your tricks about you and your skills. Take your audiences out of the ordinary and into the extraordinary and make them feel great-- they'll remember you forever.
CONCLUSION
Magic is an incredible art, hobby and profession that can provide you with plenty of unique opportunities and even take you around the world.
You need more than great magic tricks to be a successful magician. A great magician uses magic, personality, scripting, and storytelling to capture their audience's imaginations and make them feel astonished.
Work hard on your sleights and moves. Learn a wide range of magic and understand the theory behind each trick. Practice your magic tricks regularly by performing your magic tricks as often as you can.
Connect with other magicians and get feedback from people you trust. Absorb yourself in the world of magic and make an effort to improve, learn and grow every day.
That's it!
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Interested in learning magic tricks, crafts and DIY projects? Check out these from Magician Masterclass.
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 Ryan Joyce is the Executive Director of the Ontario OWOW Magic Festival. Ry an is a professional magician, entertainer and speaker who has performed over 5000+ shows worldwide. He has appeared on Penn & Teller's Fool Us, Canada's Got Talent and every Canadian national television network. He has over 10+ million views on YouTube, Facebook and social media and is trusted by Fortune 500 companies to deliver world-class performance. |
