No background?
No problem. Everything is picked up from bottom. The Guzheng teacher is patient and pay much attention to students' elementary techniques, basic hand actions which would make a big difference in advanced study. Thus it is important to form the good habit from the beginning. 
To be honest, Such kind of focus really takes effort for teaching the basic level student. Chinese call it as “基本功”.

At the end of each class, the teacher would give some simple homework. As long as student could practice one hour after class, the student can find him/herself a big difference after two or three month's study.

Almost all the students following the instruction, without any background,  use 8 to 10 months to finish the study of Level 1 to 3, including all the songs required in the standard textbook. 
A record is that one student can perform in public after half year's hard learning while she started from zero.