William Billings (1746-1800) was the first native-born professional composer in the United States. He wrote hymns, sometimes with his own words, and was also a singing master.

The son of a Boston tanner, William Billings evidently received a common-school education. At an early age he went into his father's business. Billings enthusiastically joined the two-generations-old singing-school movement of the Congregational churches. He taught himself composition from hymnbooks, especially William Tans'ur's Royal Melody Compleat, or The New Harmony of Zion (London, 1755; reprinted in seven Boston editions, 1767-1774), which had a pedagogical preface on "the grounds of musick." He chalked his notes on the tannery walls and hides and once declared there was nothing connected with the science of music that he had not mastered. He scoffed at the rules, proclaiming "Nature is the best dictator."

The Revolutionary patriot Samuel Adams enjoyed singing in Billings's viol-accompanied choir. The Brattle Street...