What it Means to Mess Up

[Josh Burch]

I just tried some new magic out for the local Boy Scout Troop. All the new stuff worked! The old work horses I've had in my show for years all fell flat. Go figure. It makes me thankful to kind people who allow me to try new things.

I was also thinking, what is the artistic equivalent to messing up in magic to say messing up in juggling, music or theater? Of course there are different levels of messing up, a flubbed line, a poorly given piece of instruction, all the way up to a berserk spectator revealing the secret to a trick.

What would these flubs look like in music? What's the music equivalent of dropping your thumb tip? Pulling out a regular deck thinking it was a Svengali? Writing the wrong number with your boon writer?

Do other arts know what it feels like to bomb like a magician?

 

[Maaz Hasan]

I would say yes and no.

Yes, because most of the time when you mess up, you have an out built in, and can normally get away with it if your performance is good. Just like how in a orchestra recital or a play, most of the time when you mess up stuff, people wont notice because they don't know what they are looking for, just like how a laymen is when you have a good presentation.

No, because if you mess up an effect from the point of no return, there isn't any going back. In a play, you can say trip, get right back up, pretend like it was on purpose, and go on with the next scene, and people will forget. If you mess up a song in a concert you can just move on (eg. Eminem forgot the lyrics to one of his songs that one day, stopped, talked a bit, and moved directly into another song related to what he was talking about. It looked like he just fused the 2 songs together with that blurb in between). A stand up comic can fail the whole night and come back with one good joke and leave on that note. But in Magic, the entire routine more or less bases itself off of the previous effect and patter for each trick. So if you blatantly mess up, it'll be really hard to turn the whole thing back around and go into your regular routine.

 

[Justinquill]

I just tried some new magic out for the local Boy Scout Troop. All the new stuff worked! The old work horses I've had in my show for years all fell flat. Go figure. It makes me thankful to kind people who allow me to try new things.

I was also thinking, what is the artistic equivalent to messing up in magic to say messing up in juggling, music or theater? Of course there are different levels of messing up, a flubbed line, a poorly given piece of instruction, all the way up to a berserk spectator revealing the secret to a trick.

What would these flubs look like in music? What's the music equivalent of dropping your thumb tip? Pulling out a regular deck thinking it was a Svengali? Writing the wrong number with your boon writer?

Do other arts know what it feels like to bomb like a magician?

Yes, I have been playing music at a busking spot and on stage and forgotten a line, or mixed up chords and the feeling is very similar to bombing in magic, that svengali thing is a bit real for me, I did that in my very first performance.

 

[WitchDocIsIn]

Even if you fail completely, just laugh it off and move on. The audience doesn't care as long as you are still entertaining. Which is a big reason why it's a good idea to be good with social skills and improvised scripting on top of technical chops.

 

[RickEverhart]

Those of us who have performed countless shows have messed up and will continue to mess up here and there in our performances. Sometimes its our fault and sometimes accidents just happen. Ha! We've all been there and it is embarrassing and humbling to say the least. Hopefully you learn from mistakes and make adaptations in order to diminish the frequency of mishaps. There are moments when the spectators/audience knows something went wrong and hopefully you have developed enough rapport with them by then that they too forgive and move along into the next effect. I would venture to say that anyone here that can say they "never" have made a mistake or error during a performance is lying or too arrogant to admit it.
Props to you for trying out some new material. Many magicians aren't willing to step outside of the box and give it a whirl.

 

[obrienmagic]

IMO you have only truly messed up if the audience knows you messed up. A good performer can make even the worst mistakes look like part of the act.

 

[Josh Burch]

Even if you fail completely, just laugh it off and move on. The audience doesn't care as long as you are still entertaining. Which is a big reason why it's a good idea to be good with social skills and improvised scripting on top of technical chops.

IMO you have only truly messed up if the audience knows you messed up. A good performer can make even the worst mistakes look like part of the act.

Those of us who have performed countless shows have messed up and will continue to mess up here and there in our performances.

All of this is good solid advice guys. I appreciate it but it wasn't the reason I started this thread. I was looking for humorous comparisons between magic and other arts. Bombing doesn't bother me too much and nothing at the show was all that bad.

For instance, a few years ago I closed my show with a chair test. Under one of the chairs I wrote the prediction, "The only woman on stage will sit here." This was the finale of my show and I built it up a lot and when it came down to it a teenage boy sat in that chair without me realizing. I revealed the chair and the audience fell apart laughing.

I'm not sure if musicians understand what it is like bombing like this. I kind of think that this is the musical equivalent of dropping your trumpet mid solo. What do you think?

 

[obrienmagic]

All of this is good solid advice guys. I appreciate it but it wasn't the reason I started this thread. I was looking for humorous comparisons between magic and other arts. Bombing doesn't bother me too much and nothing at the show was all that bad.

For instance, a few years ago I closed my show with a chair test. Under one of the chairs I wrote the prediction, "The only woman on stage will sit here." This was the finale of my show and I built it up a lot and when it came down to it a teenage boy sat in that chair without me realizing. I revealed the chair and the audience fell apart laughing.

I'm not sure if musicians understand what it is like bombing like this. I kind of think that this is the musical equivalent of dropping your trumpet mid solo. What do you think?

I think comedians have a better understanding. It is like telling a joke 1,000 times and it getting a good laugh then for some reason you accidentally change the inflection in your voice or something like that and the whole joke falls flat. I have seen it happen myself.

As for musicians, i have seen some clumsy stuff happen like tripping over a white or cymbals falling over. never seen anyone drop their instrument haha

I think it all comes down to practice but there are some things unavoidable. accidents happen.

Maybe a dancer loosing their step and falling during a routine would be another good example.

 

[obrienmagic]

or this!

 

[ParkinT]

Whenever an effect does not go as planned - and it is obvious to the audience - I simply state (as confidently as possible) "That was intentional in order to make this next one seem even MORE amazing" By saying as seriously as I can muster it reveals the absurdity of it and the audience feels as though they were included in the joke.

 

[Josh Burch]

So, I'll share how I bombed last night and how I recovered. Nothing was toi catastrophic. It's important to note that this has been in my show for almost 4 years now and it has never gone this bad.

I have a multiphase PK Touch routine. I tapped one guy another guy feels it. The guy didn’t feel the final touch. I just said, "Interesting, we'll it also works with other senses apart from the sense of touch".

I then moved on to the final phase where I make a baseball smell like an orange. This ends when I toss the baseball into the audience and ask, "Does that smell like an orange to you?" Usually they say no and the routine ends. This time the guy said, "Yes, it does smell like an orange!" I took it back and sure enough it did smell like an orange.

Apparently, I had stuck my orange next to my baseball in my case and the smell rubbed off, lesson learned. I owned up to the mistake, laughed and moved on.