4 ms·

The vast majority of them do tricks designed by other people (passed down from a mentor if you come from a living line of performers, out of books/video that ge

The vast majority of them do tricks designed by other people (passed down from a mentor if you come from a living line of performers, out of books/video that genuinely innovative magicians share with the community, or custom made for a particular performer, that's where I come in). My approach to creativity is to try and know all existing solutions to a problem (which can be tricky in a field that values secrecy but, as you develop original material and knowledge, you get noticed and start building a network of people with access to secret knowledge) then my brain tends to naturally pattern match and come up with new combinations of ideas. But it depends on the project, some things stem from the desired end result: an esthetic, an idea you want to have coming across, or a feeling you want to evoque.

lisper 3y ago
Amateur magician here. I think you're being a little bit unfair. An actor doesn't write the lines they speak. That doesn't make what they do non-creative. One of the things I learned the hard way coming up in magic is that the mechanics of the trick are a relatively small component of the overall performance. Being entertaining as a magician has a lot more to do with very subtle psychology than it does with gaffes and sleights. Inventing new tricks is more akin to engineering than it is to performing.
- didjr76 3y ago
  Everyone benefits knowing a bit about the Explore-Exploit Tradeoff in any job where Creativity/Learning is a requirement. There is no right and wrong cause everyone hits the tradeoff point sooner or later. And when it happens context switches from Explore to Exploit or vice versa are the way to go. Some people find it hard to switch up after the point is passed and that's what effects mental health when it's a single person act. With group acts, different dynamic apply cause people see each other blind spots and can compensate. The tradeoff is effected by lot of different constraints - time, resources, knowledge, access to knowledge etc. Over time People develop awareness of which one has the most influence on hitting the trade off point.
- nestorD 3y ago
  I find the cover band metaphor to be the best description of what most magicians do. It is absolutely a performance, and the experience cannot be boiled down to the list of notes, but is it art? My take is that it becomes art when the performer introduces genuine personality, something uniquely their, to the performance. Which I found to be very uncommon in magic (to my sadness, there exist fantastic magicians who express themselves through the medium in ways that are unique and worth experiencing in person, I would love to see more of that).
  - lisper 3y ago
    I think magic certainly can be art, though I agree with you that it often isn't. Really good magicians are uncommon. But I think the same could be said about actors in general. A magician is an actor playing the part of a conjuror, and most actors in general are just not very good. Acting is hard. It's not, Gene Cousineau notwithstanding, just hitting your mark and saying the lines.
    - spoiler 3y ago
      I find this the cover band analogy a bit unintuitive. Anyone who practices art will tell you arts are very technical (painting is, music is, magic probably is too is). Millions of artists have done similar subject studies; does that make everyone cover artists? I don't know much about magic/illusions, but I would think that someone with enough technical understanding of the craft could apply the techniques originally
      - lisper 3y ago
        This is the thing that very few people understand about magic, including many aspiring magicians: there is a lot more to it than just "technical understanding". Magic is a performance art. It's a kind of acting. And you can be very good at the technical stuff and still be a terrible performer/actor. (Personally, I'm bad at both :-) Here is my favorite example. This is one of the greatest performances of all time: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5_KcQt0z-eE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5_KcQt0z-eE It looks like total chaos, and most people seeing this performance for the first time think that Dani is a master of sleight of hand, and that this performance relies on extremely difficult technical moves. In fact it is exactly the opposite. The secret "moves" are very basic -- anyone can do them, and everything that happens is actually very carefully controlled. (Dani is also a master of slight-of-hand, but that's not what this act relies on.) This is not to say that what Dani is doing here is easy; it's not. Dani teaches a class on this one routine that lasts three hours, and there is never a dull moment (this is how I know what's going on -- I did not figure it out by myself). But it's not hard in the way that, say, juggling is hard, it's hard in the same way that good acting is hard. When it's done well it looks easy, and making it look easy is very, very hard.

lisper 3y ago

Amateur magician here. I think you're being a little bit unfair. An actor doesn't write the lines they speak. That doesn't make what they do non-creative. One of the things I learned the hard way coming up in magic is that the mechanics of the trick are a relatively small component of the overall performance. Being entertaining as a magician has a lot more to do with very subtle psychology than it does with gaffes and sleights. Inventing new tricks is more akin to engineering than it is to performing.

didjr76 3y ago
Everyone benefits knowing a bit about the Explore-Exploit Tradeoff in any job where Creativity/Learning is a requirement. There is no right and wrong cause everyone hits the tradeoff point sooner or later. And when it happens context switches from Explore to Exploit or vice versa are the way to go. Some people find it hard to switch up after the point is passed and that's what effects mental health when it's a single person act. With group acts, different dynamic apply cause people see each other blind spots and can compensate. The tradeoff is effected by lot of different constraints - time, resources, knowledge, access to knowledge etc. Over time People develop awareness of which one has the most influence on hitting the trade off point.
nestorD 3y ago
I find the cover band metaphor to be the best description of what most magicians do. It is absolutely a performance, and the experience cannot be boiled down to the list of notes, but is it art? My take is that it becomes art when the performer introduces genuine personality, something uniquely their, to the performance. Which I found to be very uncommon in magic (to my sadness, there exist fantastic magicians who express themselves through the medium in ways that are unique and worth experiencing in person, I would love to see more of that).
- lisper 3y ago
  I think magic certainly can be art, though I agree with you that it often isn't. Really good magicians are uncommon. But I think the same could be said about actors in general. A magician is an actor playing the part of a conjuror, and most actors in general are just not very good. Acting is hard. It's not, Gene Cousineau notwithstanding, just hitting your mark and saying the lines.
  - spoiler 3y ago
    I find this the cover band analogy a bit unintuitive. Anyone who practices art will tell you arts are very technical (painting is, music is, magic probably is too is). Millions of artists have done similar subject studies; does that make everyone cover artists? I don't know much about magic/illusions, but I would think that someone with enough technical understanding of the craft could apply the techniques originally
    - lisper 3y ago
      This is the thing that very few people understand about magic, including many aspiring magicians: there is a lot more to it than just "technical understanding". Magic is a performance art. It's a kind of acting. And you can be very good at the technical stuff and still be a terrible performer/actor. (Personally, I'm bad at both :-) Here is my favorite example. This is one of the greatest performances of all time: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5_KcQt0z-eE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5_KcQt0z-eE It looks like total chaos, and most people seeing this performance for the first time think that Dani is a master of sleight of hand, and that this performance relies on extremely difficult technical moves. In fact it is exactly the opposite. The secret "moves" are very basic -- anyone can do them, and everything that happens is actually very carefully controlled. (Dani is also a master of slight-of-hand, but that's not what this act relies on.) This is not to say that what Dani is doing here is easy; it's not. Dani teaches a class on this one routine that lasts three hours, and there is never a dull moment (this is how I know what's going on -- I did not figure it out by myself). But it's not hard in the way that, say, juggling is hard, it's hard in the same way that good acting is hard. When it's done well it looks easy, and making it look easy is very, very hard.