PeterWardell.com

The Magic State of Mind & the Andy Nyman Interview

The Magic State of Mind

I have asked a number of successful magicians if I can interview them.  Most of them said “Yes”. The plan is to either accompany each of these interviews with “take-aways”, a summary of the key points and advice,  how it applies to the rest of us and how it can help us develop as magicians & performers.   I will post these, along with the videos on a new site soon, with the intention of getting one or even two videos up each month. Hopefully you’ll subscribe because if there is enough interest then people will be more inclined to say yes to being interviewed.  It’s a virtuous circle!

The new site is The Magic State of Mind, and will be live by the end of the week, (in one form or another).  It’s aimed at helping magicians with their creative projects and their productivity.  I have a number of great people lined up for interview with the focus being on their success and how they achieved it. All of the people I interview will have another angle on magic that isn’t just entertainment, let’s call it “Applied Magic”. Motivational Speaking, Trade Shows, Writing, Inventing, Publishing etc.  I don’t want to talk about tricks as there are enough sites already doing this.

You can subscribe on the site itself, or by clicking HERE.  If you are already subscribed to this blog then you will get updated automatically as I will post links to the videos here as well.  If you’re not subscribed to this blog then just fill in your email address in the box on the left and you will get updates about both this blog and The Magic State of Mind.

The Andy Nyman Interview

Andy’s interview was the first interview I did so please forgive any technical or artistic cock-ups.  Andy was great but my delivery of these can only get better.  The interviews are recorded from Skype calls so the quality of the picture and the framing isn’t perfect but I believe the content makes up for it.

I have to say a huge thank you to Andy for being my test pilot, he is an incredibly busy guy so I owe him big time.  As I said there were some technical hitches, not least the fact that we were cut off abruptly, mid sentence at the end which only adds to the mystery in my opinion.  Maybe in true horror genre style I can persuade Andy to make a sequel?

To see the video on the Magic State of Mind site and read my take on what Andy said click HERE

Please leave comments and join in the conversation.  Post on Twitter, Facebook etc.  I’ll be extremely grateful.

Protected: Me On Me – A Performance Review.

The Busker & the Street Performer

Photo by MichaelERay

There are two distinct ways to approach performing on the street, there’s the way of the Street Performer and the way of the Busker.  (These definitions are mine by the way. Many people use the term busking and street performing to describe the same thing and they are as right as I am.)   read more

Cabaret or not?

Most close-up magicians will say that they do a cabaret, however most of them don’t.  What they do is Close-up magic and they stand further away.  It’s a bad habit formed from magicians usually being  given the job of compere and then later on trying to tie that same material into an act.  A good cabaret needs structure and it can’t be a hotch-potch of tricks thrown together.  It needs a beginning a middle and an end.  Structure is what makes the difference between a poor cabaret with strong magic and a great cabaret with standard effects.  The structure is more important than the magic. read more

Criticism

Image from www.SXC.hu

As I write this I’m sitting on a coach traveling to Madrid having just finished performing at another InterMagia, festivals of magic for the general public.  The Spanish love magic, there are probably about 70 pure magic festivals across Spain each year, maybe more.  One of the many positive aspects of working at festivals like these is that I get to work with some world class acts and even better I get to spend time with them during the long Spanish meals that we’re treated to. read more

ENERGY

I recently worked with Gazzo and he did something that had a huge impact on me.  When he entered the circle for his show, (the crowd was already in place), he brought a drummers stool in with him and sat down  Sat down!  The effect this had on the audience was tremendous. All of a sudden the focus shifted and it was as though Gazzo had breathed in and drawn the audience closer with that breath. read more