Becoming a magician is about developing skills. Concrete skills like palming, misdirection, forcing cards. All take deliberate practice and slow repetition.
But there’s another aspect that we overlook. A good magician can see what he’s doing from the audience’s perspective. It’s only by knowing what they are seeing that she can position herself to conceal the move.
Without that, you get magicians like this cute kid, who clearly hasn’t yet pictured what it looks like from the camera’s perspective.
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The concrete skills are different for choral musicians: intonation, music reading, vowels, and so on. That’s what we’re developing in every rehearsal. It requires constant focus.
And so, too often we forget that music is a magical act. We need to step back and experience the music from the audience’s perspective. Is it compelling, or are our “moves” showing? Is it music, or just notes?
It’s an important skill as conductors to hear like the audience, and vital that we instill that idea in our students.
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