Morishige Takei was born on October 11, 1890 in Tottori City (located on the coast of the Sea of Japan between Hiroshima and Kyoto) while his family was living there for a short time. His father was the Tottori prefectural governor, but the year after Takei was born the family moved to Tokyo. In 1910 he entered the Tokyo Foreign Language School and majored in Italian. After receiving a scholarship from the Italian Society he traveled to Italy in May of 1911. It was apparently during his time in Italy that Takei first encountered the guitar. He returned to Tokyo in October, 1911 and graduated from the school in March of 1913 at the top of his class and received a prize from the Italian government. It was at this time that he first began learning the guitar. On September 26, 1915 he started a mandolin ensemble with Tsunehiko Tanaka and took the guitar part. The mandolin ensemble was formally named “Sinfonica Mandolini Orchestra” on May 4, 1916 and the monthly publication of the “Mandolin and Guitar” journal was commenced. In 1923 the orchestra was reassembled and renamed “Orchestra Sinfonica Takei”. While conducting the rehearsal of a perfomance of the Orchestra Sinfonica Takei on the 12th of December, 1949 he fell ill and subsequently died on the 14th.