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What It Takes To Be A Magician
By Harlan Tarbell
CONFIDENCE AND ENTHUSIASM
You must have CONFIDENCE in yourself, first of all, to present a program properly. Review the preceding Nine Lessons. It will do you a world of good to read over again my discussions of various subjects, such as the Power of Suggestion, the Credulity of People, etc. This will do much for you in the way of giving you confidence, for an understanding of the way in which the human mind works gives you the confidence of knowing how to deal with it.
Be sure of your tricks and you need have no fear that you will fail. Remember that you are the master -- that no one else in your audience knows the secrets of your effects -- and that they cannot help but be mystified.
Start with your own family or a small group of friends in your home for your first audience. Performing before those you know will give you experience and confidence, and in time you will reach the stage where you are as much at home before a thousand people as you are before one.
Forget yourself and throw yourself into your performance, with ENTHUSIASM. If you love Magic you must bring that love, in the form of enthusiasm, into your performance. You know how contagious enthusiasm is. Your audience will catch the spark and will be alive with interest because of your enthusiasm.
Confidence in yourself and enthusiasm will, of course, do much to ward off stage fright. Absolute mastery of yourself while before an audience will, however, come only with experience. Whatever you do. BEWARE OF STAGE FRIGHT REMEDIES. I remember an instance of what a Stage Fright Chaser did many years ago. I was doing a magic show in the old town hall. One of the performers on the program bought a bottle of this Stage Fright Chaser. The directions said to take it in a dose of three to five drops in a half glass of water. To be certain of its working, this man took a tea-spoonful. Needless to say, we had a sick performer on our hands. All such remedies affect the heart and you must avoid them.
RADIATE GOOD-WILL AND PLEASANTNESS
You must start "right off the bat" with a kindly feeling for every person in your audience. You know from your own experience that when you like a person and show it, that person reciprocates your friendliness. So it is with your audience. Radiate GOOD-WILL AND PLEASANTNESS and you will get it in return from your audience. You will ward off antagonism. From the first moment you are before your audience you must win them over.
A performer is always sensitive to antagonism toward him in his audience and it handicaps him in his work. If by your attitude you gain the friendliness of the audience, you have half the battle won. You have put your spectators in a receptive mood and consequently your effects go over big.
DIGNITY — NO CHEAPNESS
You must remember, however, not to overdo in
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your effort to please your audience. ALWAYS KEEP
YOUR DIGNITY. This does not mean that you must be stiff and aloof -- that would never do; but it means that
you must never lower your standards and do something that will cause people to lose respect for you.
In your bearing, in your manner, and in your speech, never resort to cheapness or undue smartness in your
zeal to make a hit. A little reserve along with your pleasantness will make a hundred-fold better impression
with your spectators than boisterousness.
In line with this, let me say a word about your speech. WATCH YOUR ENGLISH. This is tremendously
important in your success. When you are among educated people, you must be very careful not to get this
reaction from them, "Yes, his tricks were good, but how he did abuse the English language!" and when you are
among very ignorant people, you must be correct in your speech so that they will look up to you and admire
you.
Remember always to speak distinctly.
In Magic the trick is the thing that you want people talking about. You must raise no counter-influences to
distract their attention from your experiments, as poor English will do.
APPEARANCE
I need not tell you the importance of APPEARANCE. Our first judgment of a person is based entirely on
his appearance. If you present the wrong kind of appearance the impression you convey to the audience is very
detrimental to you. If you present the right kind of appearance you open the way for yourself immediately.
Always be neat. Have your clothes well pressed and your shoes shined, wear a clean collar and a good tie.
Have your hair cut and be clean shaven. Wear a suit that best becomes you. A business suit is ideal for the
usual magical performances. At formal affairs the tuxedo or dress suit is in order but it must fit nicely so that it
will not cause comment. I will discuss dress in a future lesson when we get to stage performances.
PERSONALITY AND MAGNETISM
You must have technique in your work -- you must be a finished performer -- BUT even above this, you
must have PERSONALITY AND MAGNETISM. In business, in the professions, on the stage, those people
triumph who triumph on the side of personality. For instance, take a performer on the stage. You know that you
have seen actors who are extremely clever and make a big hit — yet their acts are very simple and perhaps
what they do almost anyone else could do. The secret lies in their emphasizing their personalities. It isn't what
they do, but how they do it.
Your job is to sell your personality to your audience — to make people like you. Then, regardless of what
you do to entertain them, they will be pleased with your efforts.
So, in the beginning, play up Personal Magnetism. Then as you perfect your technique with practice and
experience, success cannot fail you. Harlan Tarbell was the mentor of many gnerations of magicians through his famous correspondance course The Original Tarbell Course In Magic
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