Magic and Music, episode 206
Entertainment is a business of wonder. Any creative person can have an idea of what might make a good film, a good show, or a good play; but a professional knows how to make their work come to life for an audience.
When I moved to Los Angeles, I was already a pretty good musician, but I was not good at being a composer. I was missing was the little secrets that you can only learn from other masters over time, I was missing craft.
The craft of all of the performing arts is secretive, but only in magic is that secrecy enlisted as part of the show. In a magic show, the craft is displayed front and center. The craft of magic is so incredibly intricate, and requires so much practice and dedication to master, that the average person will never consider that a performer would, or could, take the time to develop such specific skills. “Magic” is the term that magicians employ to describe the result of years of dedicated practice.
“Talent” is the word we use in music.
Wonder is the feeling that the audience gets when either art is done well.
Is talent real? Of course it is. Is a concert pianist who performs a Beethoven Sonata so beautifully that it makes the audience weep, able to do so because she is talented? No. She may or may not be talented, but she can move an audience to tears because she has practiced, religiously, often for decades.
What moves us about any great performance is not someone’s talent but the fact that their ability is attainable by anyone; yet attained by very few.
“Some people are born geniuses” or “some people have magical powers” is not a profound idea. Accidents of nature can be curiosities, but wonders are intentional.
What inspired wonder for me is that anyone is capable of conjuring unfathomable beauty if they are able and willing to spend their time mastering the secrets of a performing art.
Magic, and music make us feel the same thing when done at the highest level and they conceal the same secret: any one of us can create wonder.
