What instrument do you play?

What instrument do you play?
Its a strange thing but most magicians whether they are a close up magician or corporate magician have at some point had this happen to them.

Someone asks you what you do for a living and you tell them you're a "magician", to which they respond "oh really?  what instrument do you play?".

I think this has something to do with the fact that people assume that they misheard you as it isn't often you meet a magician.  They naturally assume you said the closest thing which is musician.  As it happens I played the violin for many years in various youth orchestras and have actually added it in as part of my full cabaret act now in the context of a magic effect.

A Bad Band v A Bad Magician

Something that I have noticed over the last few years is how bad it is for our industry when someone sees a bad magician.  I have heard many people say in the past that they don't like magic and I think this is as a direct result of seeing a bad magician.

A nice compliment is when someone tells you they don't like magic, and then after seeing you perform tell you that you have restored their faith in it.  The strange thing is that a lot of the time if someone sees a bad magician at an event, when they are organising an event of their own they won't even consider having a magician because they have put us all into the same category as the person they saw when they were unimpressed.  However, you wouldn't do this with a band for example.

If you see a bad band at an event, you wouldn't then say "oh I'm not having a band at my wedding, I saw a terrible one at a wedding I was at earlier this year."  You would simply hire a band that had a better reputation, came highly recommended, played better music and conducted themselves in a professional manner.  In fact, I am willing to bet that seeing a bad band would in no way affect someone's decision as to whether to have a band at all, but simply which band to get.  This goes for photographers, caterers and any other form of event service.

Unfortunately this is not the case with magic.  People don't seem to realise that there is a HUGE difference between a good magician and bad magician, EVEN if they do similar tricks.  If you are someone who has seen a bad magician and still wishes to seek out the "right" magician for your event then bravo and thank you.  I would love to speak to you about your event and how I can help add something to it.  Simply click here to contact me.