I grew up with classical piano training (though I was never all that good at it), and a few years after moving to China started taking lessons in the guqin (古琴[

I grew up with classical piano training (though I was never all that good at it), and a few years after moving to China started taking lessons in the guqin (古琴[1]). The main challenge there (apart from the fact that the instrument puts most people to sleep) is that the traditional tabulature simply doesn't give you that much to go on -- the earliest "sheet music" doesn't even indicate rhythm. Not only that, but the contours of each piece are really only meant to be a guideline for playing: there is tempo and rhythm, but it's meant to be very flexible, subject to the mood and expression of the player. The most difficult thing in the beginning was letting go of strict time signatures, and allowing in some elastic silence. My Hanon-trained figures kept wanting to keep the beat, and they told me I sounded like a robot playing... [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guqin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guqin