When it comes to learning the piano, Ding Chengyun was first inspired by his second sister, Ding Boling. Later, his second sister introduced him to her teacher, Mr. Gu Meigan, a guqin master who teaches at the Shenyang Conservatory of Music. He often used his holidays to go to Shenyang to learn the guqin from Mr. Gu. Under Mr. Gu's teachings, he gradually entered the palace of guqin art.
Later, Ding Chengyun went to Wuhan to study, and news about him became sparse. Until 1978, Ding Chengyun went to visit Mr. Gu in his hometown in Hunan. This time, Mr. Gu took Ding Chengyun's hand and taught him how to play "Liu Shui" in the "Bai Ping Zhai" version, and asked him to compose "Guang Ling San" and other tunes as soon as possible. In the past few days, Ding Chengyun kept asking for advice, and the topics ranged from piano playing, music notation, piano players, history of the piano to piano making. Mr. Gu always answered every question and never looked tired all day long.
In 1972, Ding Chengyun taught in the Art Department of Henan University. At that time, Henan University often had the task of receiving foreign guests. By chance, Japanese ballet artist Matsuyama Shuko came to visit, and Ding Cheng used the guzheng to play "Goose Falling on the Sand" transplanted from the guzheng. Matsuyama Shuko was very appreciative. She said: "I listened to your performance with my eyes closed. It was not like playing one piano, but like ten pianos." This event was among the foreign affairs activities at that time. It had a great influence and gave him the opportunity to play guqin frequently for foreign guests. He took this as an opportunity to start playing guqin in public.
In the next few years, he took advantage of his holidays and went to Shanghai to seek advice from Mr. Zhang Ziqian, an art master of the Guangling School, carrying his homemade variant of the Fuxi-style grand piano. Mr. Zhang saw that he was so dedicated to the art of guqin, so he taught him everything he could regardless of his advanced age. In addition to the Guangling School's famous pieces such as "Plum Blossom Three Lanes" and "Long Xiang Cao" that Mr. Zhang is good at playing, he also learned Guo Chuwang's famous piece "Xiaoxiang Shuiyun". Ding Cheng spent 5 days learning this great song. When leaving Shanghai, at a gathering at Mr. Yao Bingyan's house, he played "Xiaoxiang Water Clouds" again and reported to everyone, which was highly praised by the older generation of Shanghai qin players.