How come you are discouraging people by saying you shouldnt create?
You misunderstand what I said. I didn't say that people shouldn't create, but that people shouldn't FOCUS on creating, especially when they don't have the necessary background knowledge or performance experience.
We should be encouraging & supporting each other here, not listing reasons why you shouldnt be doing something.
I disagree. We should be providing people with advice that will make them better magicians. Encouraging someone to do something that they are not prepared to do will distract them from learning what they need to learn and will ultimately lead to them becoming frustrated because after 40 hours of trying to "create" something they realize that they've reinvented the Braue Reversal. That 40 hours could have been better spent studying Expert Card Technique and learning the Braue Reversal and much more.
There might be a young, impressionable magician who could be the next Paul Harris & invent some innovative magic that the magic community could benefit from, but because of listening to guys like you, be totally discouraged not to try, & wind up not creating anything, thus slowing down the advancement of the art of magic.
Again, I disagree. If the next Paul Harris is out there, the best thing they can do is develop a strong foundation in magic before trying to invent something. If you look at Paul's effects, many of them are based on effects that were previously developed or new adaptations of older methods. I think someone is more likely to become totally discouraged about trying to create something and failing because the don't have the requisite foundation. As for the advancement of the art of magic, the best way for it to advance is to build on what has been done before. Magic doesn't advance by beginners re-inventing the wheel.
isnt performing & saying "Hey, look at what I can do!" an ego thing too?
Unfortunately, magic is presented that way too often. Magicians should present magic as "hey, let me entertain and astonish you." The audience, not the magician, should be the focus. But that is another thread.
all of a sudden, creating magic & lecturing is a bad thing? So I suppose everyone who sells magic & lectures is "wrong"?
Now you are using hyperbole to make what I said seem ridiculous. Would you go to a lecture advertised as showing "new, totally original, impromptu, fully examinable, commercial and awesome effects" by someone who has been doing magic for 6 months and has only performed for a webcam? I didn't think so. I've been to enough lectures and talked to enough magicians to know that the people who have strong material developed that material BECAUSE they had a strong foundation in learning and performing magic.
part of creating tricks is going out & testing it out on people to see if it gets great reactions, thus GOING OUT & PERFORMING.
Yes, but that is only part of it. You have to practice, test, refine, repeat and then keep repeating until it becomes strong. Talk to people who have created strong magic and they can tell you the refinements and changes their effects have gone through over YEARS of performance that took place before they released the effects.
Unfortunately, people seem to think that if you can perform it for a webcam once it should be the next amazing effect sold as a download.
The people who say they are content with doing other people's work, or that you shouldnt create, are people that themselves believe they cant create, or choose not too, which is fine, there is nothing wrong with that. I mean, could you picture someone like Danny Garcia saying to you, "No, you shouldnt create because you dont have this, & need to read this 1st, & you should do this for so long, blah blah blah."? I dont think so.
To the extent that you are inferring that I believe that I cannot create... you are wrong.
Also, I suspect Danny Garcia and most other respected artists who create would agree with me. The creative process is one that requires the imagination of an effect, the development of a method and the incorporation of the method into the presentation. The imagination of an effect is easy - we all can come up with ideas of what we would like to accomplish. The development of a method is more difficult. It requires identifying the various possible methods and selecting the best method. If you don't have the requisite foundation, you will not be able to identify the possible methods. The incorporation of the method into the presentation also is more difficult. Without having performance experience you don't know what justification, misdirection, subtleties and convincers to use to strengthen the magic.
Anyone who subscribed to EMC should go watch the Barry and Stuart lecture on "Things We Learned So Far." They state that one of the reasons they were able to "create" the effects they perform is that they had read Tarbell and had built a solid foundation. At EMC, Max Maven presented an effect that was a variation of a principle described in Annemann's The Jinx. Read any book by John Bannon and he lists the sources and inspirations for his materials and explains how he improved those techniques or applied those ideas in a different way.
If you want it, you can do it. If you believe you cant create & arent creative, you are right. If you believe you can create & are creative, you are right. & as I said, either you have the gift of creativity, or you dont, but even if you dont, you can still learn creativity. It will surely take some work, but anything worth having isnt just given to you.
Whether you believe you are creative or not doesn't matter. Creativity isn't a gift, it is a skill. It requires knowledge, experience, imagination and analytical thinking (including the ability to connect seeming unconnected information to develop new concepts and ideas). Like any skill, it must be learned and practiced.
So how is my telling people to do the work and read Tarbell and lots of other magic books and getting experience performing before attempting to be "creative" different than your statement "it will surely take some work" except in detailing exactly what needs to be done?
its nice to be able to make a living & getting paid to perform, & its also nice to be able to make a living & get paid for using your mind & selling tricks. I just wish 10 years ago someone told me I can create my own stuff if I really wanted too, I'd have so many more creations under my belt & be way more creative than I am now. So if you want to create & have something original to offer your audience, GO FOR IT!! If you wanna create & be able to make a living using your mind which not too many people can say they do, GO FOR IT!!! I believe in anyone who believes in themselves, & I believe in you guys, the future of magic. If you can dream it, you can achieve it. When it comes to magic, I think the LAST thing anyone here should discourage is creativity. So go out, invent, create, & PERFORM, as your audience is your best teacher. YOU CAN CREATE!!!!
So, if you have been doing magic a couple of months, have three downloads and bought Royal Road to Card Magic and haven't read it, by all means go out and create. Chances are that it will not be original nor entertaining. If you look at most of the videos in this forum titled something along the lines of "New Effect I Created" you will see that I am correct. People think they can create and then end up wasting time developing something that is generally weak or something that has already been created.
I'm not discouraging creativity. I actually encourage people to use their creativity to develop patter, routines and shows. I encourage people to tweak effect to make them stronger or to make them their own. I'd discouraging creativity for the sake of saying you've created something. It seems to be some sort of status badge on the forums. Everyone wants to seem like Danny or Wayne or Aaron without putting in the work.
And you know what, if you read, practice and perform like I recommend, creativity will come to you -- much more than sitting in your bedroom trying to come up with something new based on a blank slate.
