About

This songbook explores music as a practical tool for coordination, effort, and connection.

What is "Moving Music"?

Moving Music =
+ Worksongs
+ Crooners
+ Dance Tunes

For as long as people have worked together, they have sung to set the pace, share the load, steady the breath, and turn labor into something social, in between work and play. Sometimes I call this play-work "plark", but work-play, or "way", has its mystical charm.

And then of course there are dance tunes that move everyone to turn up to on Friday night. And let's not forget the songs we sing after that, late into the night, that move us sometimes to tears. Those are here, too.

Who Are You and How long have you been doing this?

I'm Bennett Konesni and I sing while I work: traditionals, originals, Farming, rowing, walking, woodstacking, felting, knitting. I also play for dances- which moves butts - and write bluegrassy songs that are moving in their own way. That's why this is called "Bennett's Moving Music Songbook" because it captures a big chunk of my musical output and the common thread is "Moving".

This songbook grows out of decades of leading music on boats, in fields, at dances, and around the old kitchen table. I began learning worksongs in the mid-1990s as a deckhand on schooners in Penobscot Bay, Maine, and have kept testing them in practice ever since. Along the way I learned to fiddle and play guitar, and write songs for many of life's situations.

And so, alongside traditional worksongs, this site also includes original songs and instrumental tunes rooted primarily in a certain kind of bluegrassy singer-songwriting and dance music. They support the same goal: getting bodies moving, lifting energy, and helping groups find momentum together.

Today the work continues from my home in coastal Maine through farming, rowing, teaching, and community music making. The focus stays the same: what is the music that moves us? That helps people move together, that moves hearts, minds, and butts?

Where are these songs from?

Many of these songs come from various traditions, from older singers, recordings, and books, as well as from my own trial and error in the present. I have tried to honor the folks who saved or wrote the songs with a mention or in some cases a biography of sorts.

The site is designed as an archipelago of songs, stories, tips, and traditions. I have created navigational courses or routes through the islands of material that I encourage you to follow if a deeper learning is what you're after. If you just need lyrics to that one classic, well, good on ya, it means you're out there plarking and I wouldn't get in the way of that!

This songbook shares what has proven reliable to me so far, and it's more of a work-in-progress than a finished product or final authority. It will grow and evolve as I learn and write more songs. If you are interested in bringing people together through song, for work, movement, or gathering, I hope it saves you some time and gets you out there, moving mountains.

And I'd love to hear how it's going, so get in touch: bennett@worksongs.org