EG Books

This workbook is essential, in my opinion, as a companion to the The Elements of Music by Ralph Turek. The issue I have with the workbook is not knowing whether or not the exercises have been completed properly because there aren't any answers in the back to check your work. The book has answers to some exercises, but far to few.

I would actually rate this book 3.5. It's a decent enough book to keep your preparation more structured, focused and on track towards clearing the exam. Remember, it's easy to get lost in MSDN. There are a few obvious typos which are easily spotted. A few of the topics covered need to be supplemented with additional information in MSDN. And I think William Ryan is the worst author of them all.

I recently cleared this exam so in case you are still working on it (instead of 70-503) here's what I did:

- Read this book cover to cover.

- Finished most of the Hands-On-Lab excercises.

- Supplemented some of the topics namely:
Custom Soap Headers/Extensions, .NET Remoting (w/ MSDN Samples), WSE 3.0 (Custom Policy Assertions, WS-Security, SoapFilters, WS-Messaging etc) from MSDN and WSE 3.0 Documentation.

- Coverage of Serviced Components/Enterprise Services/MSMQ is adequate from the exam perspective, although I did lookup some of the classes in MSDN.

- Took practice tests directly from MeasureUp (Practice Test/Exam voucher combo). Did not use the practice test on the CD.

- Took me about a month to prepare. Though I have some prior experience of building distributed applications.

The actual exam duration is 125 mins. Total of 40 questions. Passing score of 700 out of 1000. I got a score of 953 and probably 2 questions wrong.

Hope it helps and best of luck!

Here's a response to the comment made by 'pturner75':
You can use BeginXXX and EndXXX methods to invoke web services asynchronously in .NET 2.0. Just generate your proxies using wsdl.exe or wsewsdl3.exe instead of relying on auto-generated VisualStudio proxies (via web-references).

I was cruising reasonably ok on the first few chapters and quite forgiving for the few typo and bugs on the sample codes. But somehow as I went deeper towards the later chapters on WSE 3.0 the errors become more pervasive that I lost my appetite. Now, I am not sure whether I should rely on the practice test to past the exam.

Ok, it covers most of the topics.
But yikes, it repeats itself all the time instead of at least try to get a little depth. I wouldn't recommend it. Only if you are a real beginner.

Buy it used for no more than $10 (or don't buy at all), and only if you are preparing for exam. The book is terribly written, hard to read, labs hardly cover the material in chapters. It is VERY unprofessional.

This book really is very bad. Lots of the code samples
will not compile in C#.

I originally gave this review two stars. But after reading
all of it, I gave it one. The worse author is Shannon Horn,
who asks easy questions and is very verbose. He repeats the
same questions asked in previous questions.

Also, the C# samples have lots of bugs, syntax errors, and a
lot will not compile. Not to mention that lots of
the explanations do not cover how to use the tools.

Sara Morgan dropped the ball on this one. Hopefully Microsoft
will hire the same authors from 70-526, and 70-528 for
the next Web Service exam.

This is the theory book my university uses for it's theory courses. We use it for Theory 1 through Theory 4 (2 years). I've loved this book with what I've studied this far. I do agree with those who have said you have to be ambitious to take on this book on your own. Our professors do well with their explanations and play the exerpts on piano (they use the pre-recorded examples when it's above their abilities). In combination with a good teachers, this book is awesome. I could personally sit in a theory class all day with this book, but then again, I'm a major music dork.

I quite enjoy professor Gauldin's harmony text. It was comprehensive and yes, as the publisher's review states concise. Personally, I studied theory/harmony out of several different texts (Benjamin, et.al.; Siegmeister; Kostka; Piston) as an undergraduate and on my own time and I find Gauldin's to be one of the best I have come across. While in theory pedagogy class I was able to study and dissect over two dozen texts from various regions and time periods. "Harmonic Practice..." is a modern text which is great today for the modern student. The use of basic Schenker reductions is an excellent idea and one that helps the students realize linear aspects of the music that many past harmony texts either ignore or too briefly discuss. Gauldin gives a nice balance of both the vertical and linear aspects of music throughout this text (it reminds somewhat,although much better, of Elie Siegmeister's "Harmony & Melody"). The overall appearance of the book is very similar to many of the current high school texts that students use today. This is a comfortable approach for students coming into theory for the first time or with little background in the area. Many of the reviews I have read seem to be critical in areas they know little of. Yes, Gauldin presents the basics (scales, chords, etc.), but many, many undergraduate level texts do so in order for review. Also, many critics have discussed professor Gauldin's scale building on 5ths. While this is in the text it is not the primary focus on scale construction, merely a footnote (p. 27). Overall this is a very good theory text for undergrauates which could and eventually will use some improvements (the misprint in the bass of the second mm. in Ex. 10 p. 107). This book gives much insight into many aspects of beginning theory, basic Schenker principles, voice-leading, form (the excursions are a great idea), and analysis that many other books in this field often neglect. Like most popular theroy texts, "Harmonic Practice" is excellent for an undergrad program, so long as the students have a teacher with a strong foundation in theory. I highly recommend this text.

I was in Cambridge when, looking at Heffers, I met this book. I was preparing a Harmony course merging Schönberg with Kostka/Payne, and I was looking for something practical and rich of examples; so the title kept my attention. Then I was called outside in a hurry, and without thinking very much, I bought the volume. What a mistake! First of all it is full of errors: from real ones (a major sixth doesn't have 8 semitones) to typographical (almost all the headnotes are wrong). Moreover terms and rules are absolutely non-standard. And, as a cherry on the cake, when, in the appendix, he tries to explain some "Fundamentals of Acoustic, he reveals a great deal of ignorance, defining a logarithm base 10 (where he needed a logarithm base 2), confusing energy with amplitude, and giving vague explanations of the length of an instrument. Definitely, there are better books!

I am currently a TA at a university and have been forced to use this book for my class. Forced, mind you, is the operative word here. Of my own free will, I would never have chosen this book. Gauldin often uses terms that are not "standard" in the theory world and even gives an entirely new definition and usage for a term that IS standard. Trying to do suspensions the way Gauldin lays them out (especially in the accompanying workbook) is like doing a crossword puzzle. The student first has to figure out if things go up and down or sideways. I have seen more students unecessarily confused by this book.

Now, granted, another one of my issues with this book might simply be my own personal bias. I am not a Schenkerian. I have never seen the importance in reducing everything interesting in tonal music to I-V-I and mi-re-do. To this end, I have found much of this book completely useless. The harmony is introduced far too slowly with over-emphasis placed on voice-leading reductions rather than "real" music. I would suggest that anyone who actually wants to somewhat learn theory, especially those not in a classroom situation, look into something along the lines of the Kostka/Payne book. I also know one review stated the Gauldin text was vastly superior to the Piston/DeVoto. In that, I have to agree. Simply adding some actual musical examples makes this book a better choice than the Piston. However, I still do not recommend this book to anyone wanting to learn theory.

As a student studying AP music theory in high school using this book, I do not recommend it. Aside from all of the inaccuracies and odd terms that Gauldin has seemingly made up on his own, there are many occurances of terms that he describes for paragraphs but doesn't define...ANYWHERE. On a humorous note, in the glossary in the back, the term arco (bowed notes on string instruments) is spelled acro. Don't buy this book; it is not clear or concise at all.

I have to give this book two stars mainly because if this is your only or primary source of preparing for the exam you won't pass it the first time or maybe even the second time. I was lucky as I have been working with Exchange for many years now and used other study material in conjunction with this book so I was able to pass the exam the first time up. The authors do a pretty good job of keeping the subject interesting but in my opinion don't go deep enough on a technical level to prepare you for the exam. The CD that comes with the book is nice, but I would avoid the flash cards as a lot of the information was just incorrect.

I bought this book and passed up the official Microsoft text (Willis/McLean) due to a bad experience with the previous official Microsoft Exchange book written by the same pair.

I think doing so was a mistake.

I worked my way completely through the Schmied/Miller text, did all the study questions, and at the end redid all the study questions and then took the practice tests included on the CD-ROM. At that point I still felt unprepared for the exam, so I bought a prep kit from MeasureUp for $70 and carefully followed MeasureUp's prep procedure. Finally I felt prepared and took the exam.

I failed with a 667 out of 700.

Now, this was my fifth exam. I've never before failed one. In fact when I went in I felt very confident and was not at all worried about passing. How wrong I was! There were probably between ten and fifteen questions on the 70-236 exam that I flat did not know the answer to, and most of those I was not able to answer even through process of elimination.

Now, before you accuse me of inadequate preparation, keep in mind that I had been preparing about three months for this exam (reading the text, going through study questions, etc). In addition to that, I've been an Exchange Server 2007 admin for more than a year. I thought I was ready. I absolutely was not.

The fact is that the exam focuses entirely on PowerShell. There are absolutely NO questions having to do with the GUI (Microsoft Exchange Management Console) on the exam. And the Schmied/Miller text, while emphasizing that PowerShell is important ("some of these commands are likely to make an appearance on your exam"), does not stress this.

Schmied and Miller have written a lot about using the GUI to accomplish tasks but for some reason leave the equivalent PowerShell commands only as an afterthought. The emphasis is completely backwards -- this book should drill PowerShell into your head and minimize the GUI material. For a Microsoft admin who has grown used to doing things the GUI way over the past fifteen years, this is a particularly hard concept, but it's the way things are going.

In short, while I can't say that there is really anything wrong with this book per se, it is woefully inadequate if you want to pass the 70-236 exam. Buy at least one other book and make sure you dream in PowerShell code at night before you think of taking this exam. Take my word for it, 70-236 is a very challenging exam, and every minute you spend preparing for it will be worthwhile.

Wow, were they ever trying to get this out the door in a hurry. The spelling, grammatical, and punctuation errors in this book are embarrassing. I could overlook that if they didn't make a few technical errors too. The practice test on the cdrom is buggy and contains several answers that are plain wrong. But its the only non-microsoft 70-236 book out there, so you're stuck with it.

Most Sybex authors have a great way of putting "technical speak" in to their own words, which can make reading and learning new technologies much easier.

This book is on par with other Sybex books within the same category when it comes to the technical and copy editing accuracy. It does contain small, yet noticeable technical contradictions between pages, and grammatical and spelling errors.

I used this book to reinforce most of what I had already learned through experience, along with other Exchange 2007 study resources.

Although the book is advertised as a book that will help prepare readers who already possess an MCSE for the upgrade exam, the book outlines in great detail, concepts that someone new to networking would find beneficial. I do not think the book is concise enough to be considered an excellent resource to help prepare an existing MCSE for the exam - this book is too long and detailed, with many general concepts covered, that someone attempting to prepare for an upgrade exam should already know.

This book offers a good rehearsal of the matter. All topics of windows server pass by and therefore it offers a good preparation for the 70-649 exam.

This book is incredibly long. It appears to be a first draft. I guess they couldn't afford editors or something. This book contains a huge number of typos. Much of the information is wrong.

Its a horrible book. I wound up reading the Microsoft study guides for 70-640, 70-642, and 70-643. They are pretty good. I passed the test on the first try after reading and working through those books.

This book is absolute rubbish. Do yourself a favor and avoid this book at all costs. It is less than worthless.

The front page says this book contains test exams and mp3 tracks, but none of these are available from the web site as promised. I sent an email to the Syngress customer service, but they still haven't answered me today, four weeks later. :(

The book itself is allright, and covers a lot of good stuff for the exam. However it's really obvious that the author gets paid by the number of words, and the book would really benefit from being shortened down by about 200 pages. What's the deal with expanding the abbreviation TCP/IP every time it's mentioned? (Yes, I'm serious. They do that in the book)

This is not a good book for someone who has previous experience and is looking for info on what's new in Windows Server 2008. The authors are assuming that the reader knows nothing about previous Windows versions, dispite the fact that this is an upgrade exam.

Die Philosophie der Musik ist meiner Einsicht nach als eine wichtige Zusatz bei "Der Welt als Wille und Wille I und II " von Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1890). Mann kann ohne Schopenhauer Adorno nicht begreifen. Adorno solte dass besser in sein Buch angegeben haben koennen.!

Milan Kundera in his brilliant "Testaments Betrayed" puts it thus:

"[According to Adorno] a dissonance is justified if it expresses 'subjective suffering,' but in Stravinsky (who is morally guilty, as we know, of never discussing his sufferings) that very dissonance is the sign of brutality; a parallel is drawn (by a...shortcut of Adorno thought) with political brutality: thus the dissonant chords added to Pergolesi's music prefigure (and thereby prepare) the coming political oppression (which in this particular historical context can mean only one thing: fascism)....I can only call stupid [these] remarks [of adorno's] on Stravinsky's brutality and violence. He [Stravinsky] loved his old master....In adding twentieth-century dissonances to melodies of the eighteenth, perhaps he imagined he might intrigue his master out in the beyond, that he might tell him something important about our time...."

Recommended: PENTATONIC SCALES FOR THE JAZZ-ROCK KEYBOARDIST by Jeff Burns.

It's my understanding that this book is for students who are making their own patterns from SCRATCH. This way they start out with a perfect size eight sloper to make other patterns from.

This text is for beginners only, with only the most rudimentary fitting information. It is packaged along with several pellon fabric basic slopers for fitting purposes.

If you want to know every beat pattern, this is the book for you. I was looking for a more in-depth look at cueing, cut-offs, how to use both hands. I found it slightly helpful but covered very very little. I read the entire book in 9 minutes.

I bought this book because it was written by same author who wrote "Beyond the Downbeat." I thought DB/ UB was sort of prerequisite to BTD. It was not. I would not say it was money well spent.

I was disappointed by this book for several reasons. First, it is not well-organized in terms of content. Second, the references are mostly to student theses which are difficult to obtain for more information. In fact, the author has apparently not really written this book, she has merely strung together many other's works to make a long, tedious book. The problem is the works referred to are not from advanced professionals, but students or those just out of school. This makes for weak content and mostly repetition of basic material throughout.
The price was too much for what I thought I would get in terms of new info, so I ended up returning this book. I do like the author's book on psychotherapy; it is from 20 years ago, but has a lot of practical material on art therapy and as a counselor, I found it really helpful. Too bad this one was not up to the previous sophistication.

This author is an excellent writer, but unfortunately this latest book does not live up to previous volumes. The content was extremely disappointing and read like a series of student papers strung together to make a book. The text could have benefited from editing, it is laborious to read and certainly is not for those new to this field, they will find it confusing and dense. The topics are innovative, there is no argument about that and the illustrations are interesting. As a psychotherapist I was left wanting something more clear, to the point, and less laden with lengthy cases. Art Psychotherapy by this author still remains her best and classic text, I would recommend that readers interested in this field purchase that one and skip this one.

As an opera and orchestral conductor, Fritz Reiner had few equals and no betters during his lifetime. From his apprenticeship at the Dresden Opera through his decades at Cincinnati, Pittsburgh, the Met and finally Chicago, Reiner displayed a consummate musicianship and technical prowess that were truly awesome to behold. His death in 1963 terminated one of the outstanding conducting careers of the 20th century.

Reiner's greatness as a musician, however, had little in common with Reiner the man. Fritz Reiner was one of the most feared, hated and tyrannical of conductors, and his extraordinary meanspiritedness and pettiness towards his players extended into his private life. In this biography, Philip Hart, who worked with Reiner in Chicago, shows him as a man with few discernable redeeming qualities. A more in-depth psychological portrait of Reiner would have been welcome, though Hart does address what he calls a "deep seated psychological insecurity in his character." Reiner's heinous treatment of his musicians was carried over into his interactions with his wives, his children and his friends. He seems to have been a deeply self-loathing individual who took these feelings out on those around him, but also sublimated these same feelings into his art, with astonishing results.

Hart's biography is a decidedly mixed bag. It is often skimpy and superficial concerning personal matters, but also insightful and generous concerning his musicianship. The value of this biography, however, cannot be understated. Being the only biographical and critical profile of this colossal musician, Hart has done us a great service with this book, despite its obvious shortcomings. Anyone interested in great music or conducting will love this book.

Philip Hart has written the most boring biography imaginable of one of the greatest conductors of the twentieth century. He has gone out of his way to ensure that Reiner never comes alive as a person by omitting his private life completely.

The stories that surround Reiner are legendary and too famous to ignore, but Hart ignores them. Reiner's relationships with other musicians, and their feelings about him as a person and a human being will not be found in this so-called biography nor will their assessment of Reiner's place among the conductors of his time. Hart seems to be interested only in his own scholarly thoughts. - Sorry, but I'd rather hear what Heifetz, say, thought of him for example. There are even times when one suspects that if Hart himself did not witness an event, it did not take place. Hart ignores countless events already recounted by others elsewhere and he contributes nothing original from his own research.

Reiner's relationship with family and friends (besides wife Carlotta) are also not in this book. In fact, if biographer Hart wished to disinterest the public in his subject as a human being, he couldn't have done a better job.

One of the greatest musicians of our times deserves better - much better. If Hart were in Reiner's class at Curtis, he'd be sure to get a failing grade. "You have to look behind the notes to get at the music." Hart hasn't.