Nothing wrong with expanding you're repotire .. Why do you limit yourself to ten effects only?
I know the saying of mastering few tricks and so forth. But keep in mind 2 things:
1) You have to improve, learn new stuff, create new stuff, create new acts. If anything, mastery doesn't come from constant practice, but at constantly stretching your abilities to the limits ( this is a saying in chess, you could apply it to performance and skill aspect of magic ). In other words, Mastery is a journey, not a destination. ( I feel wise lol )
2) Nothing wrong with adding more effects once you feel you got the ones in your repotire down.
I read a story about Michael Skinner who entertained for 3 hours in the Magic Castle once, when power got cut ( or something along these lines ). He had a VERY large reportire. Wesley James said in the cafe he has 350 effects under his belt. On other hand, other pros have 10 only. This comes from their experience performing lots of effects and by process of elimination, you automatically came down to 10 effects. In other words, its an automatic process that comes down after having performing alot of magic in years, not a process of limitation. Do what you see fit you best. ( this is a brief explanation of the often misunderstood David Devant saying of him approached by a magician who does 80 effects, David responds he does 8 only )
also, consider doing acts. Walkaround acts usually are 10 minutes, with opener, middles and ending. You could have a unified theme, but since you're starting out it would help to get a group of effects together you do well and perform them in a link, just to get the feel of performing routines.
To
praetoritevong, I love you man ( magically
) love your posts, agree with most of em if not all, but your advice to perform less is very, very inferior. While it has some merit of the magician being overwhelmed by the audience, but some audience love our magic and ask for this, THIS IS THE TIME we have the chance to pull off our BEST performances, since you will enjoy yourself as well. Stopping the performance can be daunting for me, the performer, and them. Having a good repotire is key. Of course, the magician would need to keep himself in control, this is essential, but if they ask for more, you could DO more and STILL be in control. This is my point.
Cheers,
( sorry for misspelling Repotire throughout my post, dunno the correct spelling for it ... Not even with my spell-checker )