 He gravitated towards the stylings of guitarists Pale K. Lua, Frank Ferera and Sol Hoʻopiʻi.Decades later, he would recall being impressed when watching Hoʻopiʻi perform live.At the time Tau met Madame Claude Riviere, she was a professor of the French language at the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa, who had traveled throughout the Asia-Pacific area.