ABOUT MEGregory Tait A classically trained pianist, Gregory Tait received his bachelor’s degree in music and his doctoral degree in engineering. Drawing on a lifelong involvement in music and audio engineering, he has set up a home studio for recording and mixing musical works. Current projects include recording short musical pieces from the classical, Christian, and folk repertoire. By making these recordings freely available via streaming from music hosting platforms, he hopes others will discover and enjoy this music, and perhaps use this music in their own creative endeavors.
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"The pedal point, a long-sustained or repeated musical note usually in the bass register, provides a ground above which the harmonies change over time and create tension and excitement. As the harmonies progress above the pedal, our need for a return to the root chord grows.
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NOW AVAILABLE for DOWNLOAD !!
The Home Music Studio E-Book
Click on e-book cover
Anthem
A song becomes an anthem when it resonates deeply with a group of people, acting as a powerful symbol of unity and shared identity. Anthems are rooted in shared experiences, whether it's a major event, a historical moment, or a common struggle. The song becomes a symbol that evokes strong emotions and a sense of belonging within the group.
This album is a collection of three uplifting, joyful, and inspirational musical anthems taken from the Classical music works of Handel, Beethoven, and Dvořák.
Antonin Dvořák's Symphony No. 9, "From the New World" (1893), functions as a musical anthem by capturing the spirit of American identity through its blend of Bohemian musical traditions, African American spirituals, and Native American influences. It is music that attempts to define and celebrate a new American sound rooted in the diverse cultural landscape of the time. The melody of the second movement (Largo) has become a beloved and widely recognized expression of American nostalgia and yearning. With the added text “Goin’ Home” in an arrangement by William Arms Fisher, a student of Dvořák, the Largo has been transformed into an American spiritual of sorts. In April 1945, It was sung in memory of the just-deceased President Franklin Delano Roosevelt as his funeral train left Warm Springs, Georgia.
George Frideric Handel's Coronation Anthem No. 1, "Zadok the Priest" (1727), was first performed at the coronation ceremony of King George II in Westminster Abbey. This anthem has gained significant popularity and has been performed at every British monarch coronation since 1727, including at the most recent coronation ceremony of King Charles III in May 2023.
Ludwig van Beethoven's "Ode to Joy" chorus in the final movement of his 9th Symphony (1824) celebrates the triumph of joy over despair and conveys powerful messages of universal hope, unity, and brotherhood. The words in this chorus were adapted from the poem "An die Freude" written by Friedrich von Schiller in 1785. The poem has a strong message to all mankind: it is about living in peace and harmony together. The melody "Ode to Joy" was adopted as the official anthem of the European Union in 1985.
In these performances, the musical pieces are “orchestrated” using synthesized virtual instruments. Distortion electric guitar and slow-choir synth sounds are used to express the uplifting and inspirational musical melodies. Legato-string synth pad and tutti pipe organ sounds are used to provide the sustained bass tones and full musical harmonies. This bold and unusual combination of sounds seems fitting for these musical anthems.
Click the following links to listen to high-resolution (96kHz, 24-bit WAV) recordings of these works.
A song becomes an anthem when it resonates deeply with a group of people, acting as a powerful symbol of unity and shared identity. Anthems are rooted in shared experiences, whether it's a major event, a historical moment, or a common struggle. The song becomes a symbol that evokes strong emotions and a sense of belonging within the group.
This album is a collection of three uplifting, joyful, and inspirational musical anthems taken from the Classical music works of Handel, Beethoven, and Dvořák.
Antonin Dvořák's Symphony No. 9, "From the New World" (1893), functions as a musical anthem by capturing the spirit of American identity through its blend of Bohemian musical traditions, African American spirituals, and Native American influences. It is music that attempts to define and celebrate a new American sound rooted in the diverse cultural landscape of the time. The melody of the second movement (Largo) has become a beloved and widely recognized expression of American nostalgia and yearning. With the added text “Goin’ Home” in an arrangement by William Arms Fisher, a student of Dvořák, the Largo has been transformed into an American spiritual of sorts. In April 1945, It was sung in memory of the just-deceased President Franklin Delano Roosevelt as his funeral train left Warm Springs, Georgia.
George Frideric Handel's Coronation Anthem No. 1, "Zadok the Priest" (1727), was first performed at the coronation ceremony of King George II in Westminster Abbey. This anthem has gained significant popularity and has been performed at every British monarch coronation since 1727, including at the most recent coronation ceremony of King Charles III in May 2023.
Ludwig van Beethoven's "Ode to Joy" chorus in the final movement of his 9th Symphony (1824) celebrates the triumph of joy over despair and conveys powerful messages of universal hope, unity, and brotherhood. The words in this chorus were adapted from the poem "An die Freude" written by Friedrich von Schiller in 1785. The poem has a strong message to all mankind: it is about living in peace and harmony together. The melody "Ode to Joy" was adopted as the official anthem of the European Union in 1985.
In these performances, the musical pieces are “orchestrated” using synthesized virtual instruments. Distortion electric guitar and slow-choir synth sounds are used to express the uplifting and inspirational musical melodies. Legato-string synth pad and tutti pipe organ sounds are used to provide the sustained bass tones and full musical harmonies. This bold and unusual combination of sounds seems fitting for these musical anthems.
Click the following links to listen to high-resolution (96kHz, 24-bit WAV) recordings of these works.
Antonin Dvorak: Largo, From the New World
George Frideric Handel: Coronation Anthem
Ludwig van Beethoven: Ode to Joy
George Frideric Handel: Coronation Anthem
Ludwig van Beethoven: Ode to Joy
© 2025. This work is openly licensed via CC BY 4.0.
BLOG
Home Music Studio
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This blog journals the process of setting up a simple and inexpensive home studio for recording and mixing your favorite music. Technical and artistic sound engineering design features are discussed for this computer-based digital recording system, from the sound gear to the digital audio workstation. This is not a tutorial -- you can get plenty of that on YouTube. Come follow along as I explore the "mysteries" of putting together a music studio that can create some great sound recordings right in your living room.
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Jamendo Music - Streaming Host
Click page to go to my Jamendo Music hosting site
In April 2020, I began putting together my home music recording studio, and shortly thereafter started recording and producing some of my favorite musical pieces. I wanted to make these digital recordings available for free streaming and download to the broader musical community, and that is where the music hosting site Jamendo Music comes in. Here's a brief statement of the mission and goals of Jamendo Music, quoted from their website.........
Jamendo’s mission is to offer the perfect platform for all independent artists wishing to share their creations as easily as possible, reaching new audiences internationally. Our philosophy is that any artist in the world is entitled to share his music and should have a chance to be heard by a greater number of people around the world.
In the early 2000s, new ideas on how to digitally share creative works came to life. Creative Commons brought an alternative to the automatic “all-rights reserved” copyright, eventually leading a small group of people in Luxembourg to found the pioneering website Jamendo.com, the first platform to legally share music for free from any creator under Creative Commons licenses.
Jamendo is all about connecting musicians and music lovers from all over the world. Our goal is to bring together a worldwide community of independent music, creating experience and value around it.
On Jamendo Music, you can enjoy a wide catalog of more than 500,000 tracks shared by 40,000 artists from over 150 countries all over the world. You can stream all the music for free, download it and support the artist: become a music explorer and be a part of a great discovery experience!
In the early 2000s, new ideas on how to digitally share creative works came to life. Creative Commons brought an alternative to the automatic “all-rights reserved” copyright, eventually leading a small group of people in Luxembourg to found the pioneering website Jamendo.com, the first platform to legally share music for free from any creator under Creative Commons licenses.
Jamendo is all about connecting musicians and music lovers from all over the world. Our goal is to bring together a worldwide community of independent music, creating experience and value around it.
On Jamendo Music, you can enjoy a wide catalog of more than 500,000 tracks shared by 40,000 artists from over 150 countries all over the world. You can stream all the music for free, download it and support the artist: become a music explorer and be a part of a great discovery experience!
My goals in putting my recordings "out there" were to achieve over 50,000 listens and over 10,000 downloads. In the almost five years of sharing my music on Jamendo, these goals have nearly been met, with 50,756 listens and 9,178 downloads as of December 2025. The "statistics" of these listens and downloads over the past year are shown in the graphs below. Also shown below are histograms of the number of listens per album and number of listens per track over the past year. I am looking forward to releasing some new music in 2026.
