Altho’ this composition hath cost me much time and pains; yet I little thought of exposing it to public view: But being repeatedly importuned by my friends, I was at last prevailed upon to commit it to the press... Perhaps there may appear in the eyes of the accurate much incorrectness that I was not able to discern; therefore I would beg the critic to be tender, and rectify those errors which through inexperience may happen to have escaped the notice of a youth, in the course of so large a volume.
–William Billings
from Billing’s "preface" to his self-published New England Psalm Singer, Boston, 1776 (the first book of music published in the United States).