In the 25th year of Guangxu reign (1899), he was born in a guqin family in Changsha, Hunan. His great-grandfather Gu Gengshan was a famous painter and calligrapher in Chengdu, Sichuan. His grandfather, Gu Yucheng, was the alternate prefect of Zhili in Hunan in Qing Dynasty, and was a disciple of Zhang Kongshan, the master of modern guqin and the originator of Sichuan School.
(One of the most important disciples of Zhang Kongshan mentioned in most published History of Ancient Music in China and History of Qin Dynasty), he is also a famous painter and calligrapher. His father Gu Zheqing (a juren in Qing Dynasty) and his uncle Gu Zhuoqun are both influential guqin figures in the modern piano field. Influenced by his grandfather Gu Yucheng when he was young, Gu loved China traditional culture and Guqin art.
At the age of six, when he was studying in a private school, he studied hard the history of Confucian classics, the four books and the five classics, and all the articles were memorized by heart. In painting, he studied under Su, a famous Hunan painter in the late Qing Dynasty, and was good at painting plum, orchid and bamboo. His paintings are praised by China painters as: "There is a gentleman's demeanor of tolerance, kindness and generosity between the lines." He imitated Li Beihai, a famous calligrapher in Tang Dynasty.
It was in this growing environment that he became fascinated with the art of guqin. At the age of 12, he began to learn from his father Gu Zheqing and his uncle Gu Zhuoqun. The first song is "Drunken Fisherman Singing Late", which is a much-told story in the piano field for some time. During this period, his piano skills were truly inherited by the Sichuan School, and he joined his own Nanxun Piano Club.
65438-0959 Shenyang Conservatory of Music established Guqin major. At that time, the famous musician Li sent Mr. Zhu, director of the folk music department, to Beijing to hire the ancient folk music department to teach guqin specialty. Since then, Gu has become the first person majoring in Guqin in music colleges in Northeast China.
Sowing, flowering and bearing fruit in the "cultural desert" area compared by ancient literati. During this period, he taught many famous people in the piano field today. Such as Gu Zechang, Ding Jiyuan and Ding Chengyun.