How Do You Get to Carnegie Hall?
“Practice lady, practice.”
Okay so it’s a very old joke but the fact is practice alone won’t get you anywhere as a performer. You need to rehearse.
I have to admit I’m pretty shit at rehearsing and trying to rehearse in isolation is really hard. As a magician I need to interact with the audience and that’s impossible to simulate. I can pretend, but I can’t rehearse. I’m writing this because I have a Trade Show next week and I’ve practiced my little arse off and now I need to rehearse, but I can’t. So what’s the answer? Maybe….
- Write a script – and I mean WRITE it down. This seperates the trick from the performance and stops you thinking technique and starts you thinking interaction.
- Video it – At least you won’t feel like such a tit if there’s a reason to be speaking to yourself in an empty room.
- Music – Rehearse with music on in the background, it fills the silence and can remove that tit like feeling.
- Go Mental – Run through the performance in your head and see the show happening live. ( Learn to nod your head when you do this so you can rehearse while your wife is talking to you.)
- Stop tweaking, (phnar, phnar) – At some point you have to go with what you’ve got and stop making “improvements.” Last minute improvements rarely are, they stop you rehearsing and keep you practicing.
Or you can avoid the issue altogether like I’m doing now.
