"Friday the 6th of November 2015 was an important day for me. Christian
Kobi had invited me to take part in his »zoom in« festival in Bern. Earlier that day I visited the Kunst Museum, looking at the work of Cuno
Amiet (1868-1961), recalling the work of an earlier Camille Pissarro,
interesting contributions from Felix Vallotton (1835-1925), also an very
important exhibition of how photography had influenced Toulouse-Lautrec (1864-1901) called “ Lautrec’s Photographic Eye”. What struck me was how the fashion of the day became aged, yet the TL paintings stayed fresh, and that his drawings were fantastic. Connected to the TL photos was film of the American dancer Loie Fuller’s (1862-1928) Fire Dance and Adolf Wölfli's (1864-1930) large work Memoriam (1926).

For my solo in the festival I used a long lapstick guitar, Boss RC3,
Boss PS3, six band EQ, Sony ICF-SW22 and Roberts R984 radios, two
contact mics, and a metal strip.

November 2015 marked the end of the first year of living with Parkinson's, during that year the right hand tremor was becoming more and more uncontrollable, to the point I could not conceive of how in the
future I could manage solo performances. During that year I had
experimented with different anti-shaking set-ups, in attempts to work
around the tremor caused by the stress and anxiety of performing solos.

It was during the 33min solo on the 6th of November in Bern that I
concluded that I did not want to continue performing solos, and almost
immediately from that day onwards I declined invitations to perform as a
soloist. The only exception was three performances of a 20mins Click
piece based on using pre-recorded material, meaning all I had to do was
press the start button, these events were performed in complete darkness.

Retirement, or stepping away, is difficult and painful. It requires a
recognition of certain realities, that you are not important, that the
world does not care that you have stopped performing solos, actually the
world does not notice that you have stopped, life outside your bubble
continues, get used to it, you are not at the centre of anything. A part
of the reality is to try not to leave a big mess for others to tidy up
after you have left the departure lounge, retirement is an opportunity
where you are able to discard all the junk you’ve accumulated.

I want to share with you a recording of that 33 mins solo from Bern
before it too departs for the dustbin.
An important moment in the solo is at 12:10 thru 12:21 where the
Parkinson tremor frequency (around 300bpm) can be heard, and it’s around this moment I decide not to solo again."

Keith Rowe