With Your Own Two Hands: Self-Discovery Through Music

Book Description

This best-seller by the nationally acclaimed pianist is a realistic program for conquering nervousness, sharpening concentration, and enhancing coordination. Bernstein observes that musicianship requires the same talents used in any activity, and shows how to develop a dedication to practice that can harmonize the musical and personal self.

Customer Reviews:

Essential reading for Pianists of all abilities.......2007-08-12

This book contains essential information for any music student. Purchased to address physical discomfort that required a year-long sabbatical and hand therapy, splints, etc. Previous methods researched included the Taubman method, etc. were much too time-consuming and impractical for the average person who practices less than 12 hours a day. The material on the mechanics of playing was very helpful in helping me overcome tendonitis and shoulder pain. As for practicing approaches, he first part of the book (A Reason For Practicing: Why Do You Practice, Why Don't You Practice and Concentration) is motivating and inspiring, something I refer to again and again. Helped me understand why I practice and don't practice. Addresses psychological barriers that may influence one's approach to music. Wonderful section on concentration, memory, Listening, You and the Piano and Choreography. Section on Performance Anxiety was also insightful and provided innovative approaches.

Excellent aid for those who want to play the piano.......2006-07-11

Bernstein's book is full of great lessons on how to improve your piano playing. This book and "The Art of Piano Playing" by Newhaus should be on every piano player's shelf. I gained a great deal of insight from reading this book and plan to read it again and again. This book will help any serious student of the piano no matter what your level. As you improve your skills you will turn more and more to this book because it will help you at each level. A must read.

A Gifted teacher explains it all!.......2005-07-02

I got a LOT out of this book. The suggestions helped me flesh out many misunderstandings I have at the piano. My teacher told me it's all about concentration and Seymour Bernstein gives tons of suggestions to helped get me to the level of concentration I needed to achieve. I'm an A.D.D. type, mind wondering practicer who focused way too much on muscle memory even though I consider myself musical and the piano hasn't been my primary instrument. That led me to certain distracting physical challenges that took away from the musicality. This book will help you understand how to listen to yourself better and consider all of the notes when you're playing instead of the bulling though hard parts. Get this book, The Art of Piano Playing by Heinrich Neuahus and Piano Technique by Walter Giesking. These books vary in thier suggestions but you can build a complete point of view out of them to find yourself in your piano playing.

Motivated me to keep playing piano.......2004-01-27

Before reading this, I thought it was a kind of mechanical things. And I treated playing piano carelessly. But this book helped me to be serious about it.The title itself shows his idea on piano playing. In the first part I reflected on my attitude to practicing and my teacher. He suggests various aspects of techniques in the second part. Not all of suggestion worked for me but surely it is worth reading.If you are interested in 'why' and 'how as an intermediate player, I think this book is for you.

Some gems, here and there.......2002-10-30

If you can tolerate all the touchy-feely psychobabble, the boasting, self-promotion and pretentiousness, you will find some genuinely worthwhile and (to me anyway) original ideas on a variety of topics -- how to memorize, how to strike a balance between staying loose and obtaining a "big sound", hmmm, I might be able to come up with one or two more. So basically, you're looking at a high noise-to-signal ratio here. On the other hand, if you hate to practice and you're looking for a motivational book, this may be just the thing.

With Your Own Two Hands : Self-Discovery Through Music

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With Your Own Two Hands : Self-Discovery Through Music
Seymour Bernstein
Manufacturer: Gale Group
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0911320083

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With Your Own Two Hands: Self-Discovery Through Music
Seymour Bernstein
Manufacturer: Schirmer Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000O91XF8

Book Description

Like other kids in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn, Ejovi Nuwere grew up among thugs and drug dealers. When he was eleven, he helped form a gang; at twelve, he attempted suicide. In his large, extended family, one uncle was a career criminal, one a graduate student with his own computer. By the time Ejovi was fourteen, he was spending as much time on the computer as his uncle was. Within a year he was well on his way to a hacking career that would lead him to one of the most audacious and potentially dangerous computer break-ins of all time, secret until now.

Before he finished high school he had created a hidden life in the hacker underground and an increasingly prominent career as a computer security consultant. At the age of twenty-two, he was a top security specialist for one of the world's largest financial houses.

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One of the most gripping yet improbable stories spawned by the computer revolution, Hacker Cracker is a classic American-dream success story set on the razor edge of high technology. Ejovi Nuwere takes the reader on the roller-coaster ride of his extraordinary life, from the bullet-riddled, drugged-out streets of one of America's most notorious ghettos to a virtual world where identities shift and paranoia rules, where black-hat hackers and white-hat sleuths confront each other by day and witch roles at night in the ongoing war to control America's most sensitive computer systems. It is a story of an African American boy coming of age in the new millennium, a story that vibrates with the themes of American life, those we know and those we are just beginning to glimpse. Like other neighborhood kids in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn, Ejovi Nuwere grew up among thugs and drug dealers. When he was eleven, he helped form a gang; when he was twelve, oppressed by the violence around him, he attempted suicide. In his large, extended family, one uncle was a career criminal, one a graduate student with his own computer. By the time Ejovi was fourteen, he was spending as much time on the computer as his uncle in college was. Within a year he was well on his way to a hacking career that would lead him to one of the most audacious and potentially dangerous computer break-ins of all time, secret until now.

Customer Reviews:

I think even my mother would like this book!.......2005-06-17

The first part of the book deals entirely with the authors plight of growing up in a very rough area of town and the struggles that he faces with on a day to day basis. Apart from the first 4 or 5 pages, which contained a fast moving account of what happens when a rogue Chief Technology Officer gets sacked, for the first 71 pages I was wondering whether a differnet book had been slipped inside the jacket of hacker cracker as there was no mention of computers at all. The story was still pretty interesting though. Eventually he gets round to his first experience with computers and his encounters with hacking and the addictiveness of it all. Eventually the story ends up with a moving account of being at the site of the twin towers on 9/11 and a very touching part about a strange whistling noise (which I won't explain as it is a bit of a spoiler). An easy read and not really the usual hacker biography type book. I think this is partly due to the fact that the author is assuming his readers are not technical as some of the explanations (IRC for example) are very basic and some are almost "media stereotypical assumptions" of what really goes on.
As the theme of the book is the struggle to overcome and make life a lot better for his family, the target audience for this book is increased beyond the geek and I think even my mother would like this book!

Intercity computer whiz-kid(pretty good book).......2004-02-17

Ejovi Nuwere is from Bedford Stuyvesant a neighborhood in brooklyn he comes from somewhat of a brokenhome doesnot really know his father and has a mother who does just about anything in the world for her children but she is a drug addict and has Aids he lives with his grandmother uncle and brother and numerous others that hang out at his grandmothers apartment were something is always going on.

He faces the struggles most other intercity kids face with the gangs,drugs poverty and violence but he seems to pick up on the fact that the gangs and drugs are a losing way to go.In one part of the book while he attend a school for the performing arts he ends up joining a gang just for his own protection but it seem a somewhat differant type of gang besides the violence they where teaching the members. While in school he had a few brushes with some basic IBM computer but when he hooked up with the principal and asst. principal who had apple mac he started to develop a real interest in computer and this interest was fed by the uncle who also lived with who had a computer and would let Ejovi many 10-14 hour days on.
Along with another computer hacker he had met in school they begin getting into hacker chat rooms and learning and developing their skills and trying to make a name as is the thing to do in the hacker community.With his knowledge and desire to succede he ends starting to get jobs while still a teenager and as time goes on decides that full time may not be the way to go one thing for sure it does not pay the bills
Alot of the computer hacking involves stolen credit cards and manufactured cards one story when Ejovi couldnot stand it and decided to buy his own computer with a stolen number and has the computer delivered to a run down building nextdoor and the FBI ends up coming was pretty funny story.

This is a pretty good book about somebody having the drive and desire to succcede even living in tough and living through tough conditions and making it along the way he also takes up a form of kung fu.It was a little difficult at times understanding some of the computer stuff for a novice like me but there are definitions in the back of the book and he describes thing pretty good.

American Dream Story.......2004-02-14

This is an amazing story of a young man who goes from nothing to something, using technology. After reading this I was inspired to do something with my life!

Book Description

One of the most gripping yet improbable stories spawned by the computer revolution, Hacker Crocker is a classic American-dream success story set on the razor edge of high technology. Ejovi Nuwere takes the reader on the roller-coaster ride of his extraordinary life, from the bullet-riddled, drugged-out streets of one of America's most notorious ghettos to a virtual world where identities shift and paranoia rules, where black-hat hackers and white-hat sleuths confront each other by day and switch roles at night in the ongoing war to control America's most sensitive computer systems. It is a story of an African American boy coming of age in the new millennium, a story that vibrates with the themes of American life, those we know and those we are just beginning to glimpse.

Like other neighborhood kids in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn, Ejovi Nuwere grew up among thugs and drug dealers. When he was eleven, he helped form a gang; when he was twelve, oppressed by the violence around him, he attempted suicide. In his large, extended family, one uncle was a career criminal, one a graduate student with his own computer. By the time Ejovi was fourteen, he was spending as much time on the computer as his uncle in college was. Within a year he was well on his way to a hacking career that would lead him to one of the most audacious and potentially dangerous computer break-ins of all time, secret until now.

Along the way, Ejovi found time to become a kickboxing champion and an aspiring actor. Before he finished high school he was combining these pursuits with his hidden life in the hacker underground and an increasingly prominent career as a computer security consultant. At the age of twenty-two he was a top security specialist for one of the world's largest financial houses when his life was forever altered in the cataclysm of September 11, 2001.

Hacker Cracker is at once the most candid revelation to date of the dark secrets of cyberspace and the simple, unaffected story of an inner-city child's triumph over shattering odds to achieve unparalleled success. This riveting autobiography is a Horatio Alger tale for our times: a thrilling, frightening, and ultimately uplifting story of survival and accomplishment.

Customer Reviews:

Not too bad.......2007-01-02

The beginning of the book is a bit boring. If you love reading biography of "a person", it's probably a good time killer. If you are looking for something exciting underground, keep looking, this book is not suitable.

Fun to remember but no substance.......2004-08-10

Hacker Cracker. Just the name caught my eye and so I bought it thinking it would be a similar to Masters of Deception or Mitnick story, but it wasn't. The entire book is just Mr. Nuwere recounting his exploits from America Online to large corporations, throwing in a good bit about the mean streets of New York, and rounding out (literally) with some non-relevant martial arts. After reading it I was really let down. I was looking for something a little more definitive about computer security, the evolution of it from the time he was a kid to now, etc. Sad to say Masters of Deception was a better book than this but nothing will ever come close to the writing talent, intrigue, and plain storytelling than Cliff Stoll's book the Cuckoo's Egg. Maybe in twenty years if Mr. Nuwere wrote another book and explained what he's learned after spending some time OUT of the mean streets then perhaps it'd be a better book. Right now it's just a feel good made for TV movie.

Why bother?.......2004-07-15

Insipid. When I saw this book I was interested by it seeing that Ejovi Nuwere was from Brooklyn where I grew up. Sounded like a good story...I'll read it I said.
Well, I was very disappointed. The book might as well be titled "My pride in leaving the inner-city and becoming a proto-yuppie". The writing of the book is at the level of Sports Illustrated for Kids and the depth of the book rises to a level little higher than Britney Spears pop music. Yes, he was from the 'hood but there is no emotion in his writing, no grit. The characters in his life seem plastic and secondary...certainly they are not, but Ejovi relegated them to this role so he could tell his American Dream how to become a content yuppie story. Let's hear more about the thoughts of his mother, his uncle, his brother, his neighborhood. Or perhaps this is too much to ask of him... Did he even know what was going on in the world or was he too plugged into his own egotistical cyber world that he did not live in the real world? As he said, he had a choice...to turn outward and be bad or turn inward and be essentially a reclusive person. What a choice...just imagine if Martin Luther King Jr. or Malcolm X said that. Well, Ejovi turned inward and this self-centerdness is evident in this book.
If you want to learn about life in the inner-city pick up Sanyika Shakur's autobiography "Monster" or a Tupac Shakur CD, but please don't bother with this soulless, puerile book.

Nice try but doesn't come through.......2004-02-16

It attempts to be great but really nothing interesting. Mostly about his growing up in the bronx and if he does talk about computers then you have to know computer to know what he's talking about. I t tries to be good but fails because it's to much of a survey of his life in stead of a telling of it. skim over it if you can find it in your library but don't bother paying to read it because you'll surely be disappointed.

Highly recommended by Charles Washington.......2003-08-01

A co-worker recommeded that I read this book, and, honestly, I did not have very high expectations. Much to my surprise, I found the book nearly impossible to put down. It is an intriguing tale of a boy who spends his days learning the ins and outs of "hacking". He is also forced to cope with the hardships of inner city life and with the fact that his mother is dying of AIDS. The book is hard to follow at times, especially for those who are not well-versed in computer terminology, but it still a worthwile read.

Hacker Cracker : A Journey from the Mean Streets of Brooklyn to the Frontiers of Cyberspace

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Hacker Cracker : A Journey from the Mean Streets of Brooklyn to the Frontiers of Cyberspace
Ejovi Nuwere David Chanoff
Manufacturer: Harper Paperbacks
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000OESO1E

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Hacker Cracker: A Journey from the Mean Streets of Brooklyn to the Frontiers of Cyberspace
Ejovi; Chanoff, David Nuwere
Manufacturer: William Morrow & Company
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000OEXS06

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Hacker Cracker: A Journey from the Mean Streets of Brooklyn to the Frontiers of Cyberspace
Ejovi Nuwere , and David Chanoff
Manufacturer: Turtleback Books Distributed by Demco Media
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0606299610

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Solid, thoughtful, well-done book for those who use open source

A real goldmine

Excellent resource for developers, users, and investors

Great Book! Exactly what we needed!

Great book for anyone who wants to understand Open Source, e

Succeeding with Open Source
Bernard Golden
Manufacturer: Addison-Wesley Professional
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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All Titles | Qualifying Textbooks - Fall 2007 | Stores | Books
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Similar Items:

The Business and Economics of Linux and Open Source

Understanding Open Source and Free Software Licensing

The Success of Open Source

Open Source for the Enterprise: Managing Risks, Reaping Rewards

Open Source Solutions For Small Business Problems (Networking Series)

ASIN: 0321268539

Book Description

This book grew out of work my system integration firm, Navica, performed for our clients. We serve both large and small companies in a variety of industries, implementing and configuring software applications as well as developing custom systems. It's not exactly a secret that IT budgets have been tight over the past few years, so many of our clients asked us to explore ways to deliver projects at lower cost.

In our efforts to find ways to lower project costs, we came across something called open source software. Given my background in large IT shops, global consulting firms, and enterprise software companies, I was pretty skeptical about a product that promised something for nothing. The whole ethos of volunteers delivering high-quality software seemed counterintuitive to me. Furthermore, I wondered how we could obtain support and training for the product. In short, I couldn't understand how open source worked. However, I felt we had to try open source as part of our effort to do the best possible job for our clients.

Our experience with open source amazed us. Far from our nightmare vision of poor quality code distributed by a flaky group of unqualified idealists, we found that robust products were available that performed more than adequately—we were able to succeed with open source. I knew we were onto something when our clients began to ask, "What other open source software can we use in our system?"

This presented us with another problem. Many of our clients accepted without question our open source recommendations; after all, the role of a professional services firm is to serve as a trusted advisor, and these clients expected us to fulfill that role. Others, however, although not mistrusting us, would inquire how we chose the proposed product. If the project plan called for turning the system over to them after implementation, they would ask about training options and quality, where they could turn for support, and so on. Even though we had seen good results with the products we recommended, we really had no formal criteria or documentation we could point to as the basis for our recommendation. The problem was compounded if our clients needed to get approval for the project from higher-ups in the organization. The higher you go in an organization, the more formal the paperwork needs to be. It wasn't nearly enough to present a slide that, under selection criteria, stated "a guy from the system integrator heard this was a good open source product." Clearly, our clients needed something more concrete for their project approval and budget process.

Even if our clients would have accepted an informal method of selecting open source products for their projects, I was uncomfortable with it. A career spent creating and implementing mission-critical software has made me acutely aware of the importance of assessing software in all its dimensions: functionality, support, training, and documentation, among others. If we were going to recommend open source products as a key piece of our client's software infrastructure, I felt we needed a more formal methodology that would assess a product along all of those dimensions before we put it into production.

Out of that came our development of the Open Source Maturity Model (OSMM). This model assesses open source products for their maturity—essentially, their production-readiness. The OSMM enables one or two people to evaluate an open source product with less than a week's work. By doing so, the model quickly identifies which products are worth a more in-depth pilot-project evaluation. Using the model has made us more comfortable with our recommendations, made our clients' project-approval process flow much more easily, and significantly reduced our clients' project risk.

As we've created open source-based systems for our clients, I've concluded that all IT users share their motivations. Open source is going to be widely used throughout the industry. Its cost structure is compelling. I believe the move to open source is consistent with the cost-reduction trend in all industries via customer self-service and self-reliance. As an example, look at the airline industry. In the beginning, it delivered high-cost, full-service transportation, complete with elegant meals and personal attention. Today, airplanes get you there just as fast, but elegance is but a distant memory. Passengers book their own tickets on the Internet (Remember travel agents? Another victim of self service. . .), bring their own meals, and pay extra for a movie, all in the name of low fares. You'll occasionally hear someone nostalgically recalling the long-gone days of elegant airline travel, usually a passenger about to step onto a Southwest Airlines jet—the Greyhound bus of the sky. The obvious IT analogy is the hardware transformation driven by Dell. You get a rock-bottom price but are expected to install and configure the system yourself. I believe software is going to tread that same path: low prices (free in the case of open source) accompanied by more do-it-yourself work.

Because of this belief, I decided to share our experiences with open source. As it becomes more widely used, a formalized method of selecting and assessing open source software and all of its elements will be extremely useful. You can take advantage of the system we use and shorten your learning curve with open source products. There is no turning back: You will need to be more self-reliant in the future as you choose and implement software. I hope you find the material in this book useful. If you do (or, for that matter, if you don't), I would be delighted to hear from you; I can be reached at bgolden@navicasoft.com.Please visit the site to view the latest information.

Customer Reviews:

Solid, thoughtful, well-done book for those who use open source.......2007-03-08

I found this book to be excellent. It clearly defines areas to be researched, how to do that research, where to find the resources and how to make sure the package will meet the needs of the users. It is well written, easily understood by all levels of users and extremely, extremely helpful. If only users of open source software went through these steps, open source would be far more successful than it already is.

A real goldmine.......2005-07-21

This book is perhaps the best resource I've run across on the subject of evaluating open source.

In this book, Golden explains the methodology of applying his Open Source Maturity Model (OSMM). OSMM is a framework for evaluating the maturity of an open source project and its usefulness, specific to an organizations software requirements. The book provides excellent insight into the organization and culture of open source projects and provides a wealth of recommendations for investigating and evaluation open source software.

I was really blown away by the accessibility and accuracy of Golden's writing. Having been involved in open source for about 6 years in one context or another, I found his analysis of open source software to be spot-on. If you are looking for a simple, guided, and clear methodology for evaluating the usefulness and maturity of a specific open source project, you should read this book. It's a goldmine.

Excellent resource for developers, users, and investors.......2005-04-13

Bernard Golden's book offers one of the most comprehensive analytical tools for evaluating open source software projects, his Open Source Maturity Model (which is also featured on his website, www.navicasoft.com.) The book starts with a general overview of open source software, open source business models, and key legal issues, and then discusses the OSMM in depth. It also offers a very detailed and fair evaluation of a major open source project, JBoss.

Whether you are a developer creating an open source project, a user evaluating an open source project, or an investor doing due diligence, this book is a very valuable resource.

Great Book! Exactly what we needed!.......2005-01-04

Any IT Manager with their eye on the radar knows that open source software is rapidly maturing into a viable alternative to expensive commercial software packages. However, there are still some barriers to entry into the OSS world, especially for IT Managers within large, traditional, non-IT companies.

The OSMM evaluation method described in this book is a perfect fit for an IT Manager trying to find a way to justify their use of open source software inside the software stack of one of those traditional, non-IT companies.

The real-world examples provided by Bernard throughout the book are very interesting and can be used as additional "weight" to your arguments if you are trying to convince your boss that your use of OSS is no longer the pioneering adventure that it once was.

This book not only provides OSMM evaluation method, but also a well-written overview of the current status of OSS in the first three chapters.

I was not able to find blank worksheet templates on www.navicasoft.com although the book indicates that these are located somewhere on the website. I also could not find a way to upload an assessment to share with the OS community. This is a something that should be considered as it would really be a tactical advantage for IT Manager's efforts if there was a section of Navica's website dedicated to sharing OSMM assessments of the different OS packages. I can imagine that a user community would quickly spring up in response to such an portal.

Truly an excellent book!

Great book for anyone who wants to understand Open Source, e.......2004-12-09

Have you been wondering how to extend the use of open source software in your organization, but would like to know how to find the right software and do pro-quality evaluations of alternatives effectively? This excellent book by Bernard Golden will show you what's different about open source in detail, how you might make those differences work in your organization, and how to use a simple, effective model that summarizes the necessary elements to compare different apps that might fit into your environment. Using Golden's methods will educate your choices, reduce your risks, and help you to succeed with open source.

This is a "How-To" book for IT managers, but it's also very suitable for beginners. The concepts don't require technical knowledge, and the explanations are clear and concise.

Part I is an overview of everything you wanted to know about open source. It dispells myths, and helps you to understand why open source works at all. Best of all, each chapter has an executive summary, and most paragraphs have a margin note that summarizes the paragraph's concept. This really makes the book easy to read or review. You can skim down the page reading the concept notes until you come to the areas where you want more in-depth knowledge. The overview is excellent.

Part II (which also includes the great paragraph notes) introduces Golden's Open Source Maturity Model, the framework for applying what you learned, or knew, from Part I, and more that you will learn later in Part II. The model is a template that grids the elements for software assessment and weighting factors. When you do the math you get the product maturity score, maturity being how full-featured and ready for production use the product is. Of course, your weighting factors will affect the score to make it useful in light of your organization. Formally scoring a number of products will pinpoint the products you should and should not be considering. This part is pretty simple.

The devil, of course, is in the details. Golden discusses different types of organizations, how they should set up their reviews, weightings and interpret scores. Then he applies this process to a real-world example using JBOSS, a significant open source product. Each element is fully explored in its own chapter, and this is where the rubber meets the road. Golden compares how commercial products provide the elements, then he discusses how open source provides the elements, many times by using different mechanisms. He gives great guidance on how to find and use these resources when they differ from the single-point solution of commercial software. If differences between open source and commercial software implementation weren't clear to you before, they will be after these chapters, and you'll begin to know how to get the most out of them, too. Open source may not be the right answer for your environment, but now you'll know exactly why, and what has to change before it is.

This is a well-written and thorough book, good for initiates and decision makers, made easy to use by the paragraph notes. If open source is on your radar, I highly recommend it.

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