Why Liszts with a ‘z’?

The original intention of Liszts was to give me direction and inspiration when making music. I have defined time slots to make music—at nights whilst the kids are in bed—and so time is of the essence. But I have found that with this limitation comes pressure. Because time is tight I need to hit the floor running and not deliberate over which part of the process to work on each night. My solution has been to make simple lists with broad themes like ‘arrange’, ‘mix’, ‘jam’, ‘sound design’, ‘practice guitar’ etc. Then I randomly choose a focus from that list. Doing it this way means that the decision is out of my hands—no procrastination or wasting time struggling to decide—whatever the selection is, that’s what I do now. As time has progressed I have even added ‘take a break’ to that list because sometimes giving ourselves permission to rest is the hardest thing to do.

Ok, but why the ‘z’? Well, when referring to these randomised lists, whenever I said the word ‘Lists’ it would sound different in this context. I realised that over time and after saying the word numerous times I had subconsciously begun visualising the name with a ‘z’ like ‘Liszt’, instead of ‘List’. Serendipitously, Franz Liszt was a Hungarian composer and virtuoso pianist from the early 1800s. He is widely regarded as perhaps one of the greatest pianists of all time. There’s something lovely about the synchronicity of me creating lists to help me make better music, whilst subconsciously thinking of Liszt, perhaps one of the greatest musicians/composers of all time.

I doubt Liszt had the same issues with procrastination or motivation when he was creating innovative radicalisations in harmony or hanging out with Chopin. But you never know!

And so: Liszts, with a ‘z’.

App store download coming 2023.