Andrew Law.

As the music of Billings and his followers became increasingly influential, it provoked a powerful reaction that revealed the unease with which many Americans greeted the social tendencies embodied in such music. The leader of this resistance was Andrew Law, a member of a prominent Connecticut family whose emphasis on order and gentility in music was the product of his privileged social background. Law was best known as a promoter of singing schools and a compiler of songbooks, including his own collection of psalm and hymn tunes, Select Harmony (1778). In contrast to Billings's emphasis on spontaneity and naturalness, Law insisted on refined singing and "good or genteel pronunciation." He sought to replace Billings's indigenous tunes with music composed in the European style. In the 1793 edition of his Musical Primer Law accused American composers of writing tunes that would encourage...