Instrument Suggestion (or Voice?)

[kikookua]

Hello everyone,
I was just wondering if anyone has any ideas of what instrument to learn.  Ultimately it will be my choice, but I wanted to know what you guys think as well.
I've listened to 12 Girls Band, lots of faux-traditional and Traditional Chinese music (my sisters did traditional Chinese dance), and lots of Traditional Korean music. 
I would love an instrument I could transition to the Korean Version or the Vietnamese Version, but still play the Chinese one.

I have played:
Piano (8-10 years+)
Western Orchestral Percussion (4 Years)
Korean Hourglass Drum (7 Years, although I wasn't very good.  I didn't learn proper technique until recently.  I couldn't understand my teacher, one day it just clicked).
Western Choral Singing (4+ years).
I will be taking guitar lessons over the summer.  Right now I can struggle through simple tunes like Ode to Joy, etc.
I can read some (about 100) Japanese Kanji that although are read differently, usually have the same meanings.
I play by ear; I can also read Western Classical Notation in both Treble Clef and Bass Clef.

I have read a little bit about a lot of instruments.  I'm currently leaning towards either Erhu/Haegeum/Dan Nhi, Yangqin/Yanggeum, or Sheng/Saenghwang/Shou. 
I live in a diverse area; finding lessons for Erhu would probably be only a bit of an issue.  Sheng or Yangqin?  Not so much.  I might be able to ask this nice North Korean refugee to teach me to play Yanggeum, but I do not know anyone who plays Saenghwang.  The tunings are different than Sheng. 

I am strongly leaning towards an instrument that is not percussion with the exception of Yangqin (although is it percussion?) because it is pitched. 
I want to play a pitched instrument.  I haven't played a stringed instrument or a woodwind before, so if you think I should learn a certain Western equivalent, that would be helpful as well. 

Thank you very much.

[edcat7]

Hi kikookua,

What ever you decide to learn it will take years of tuition. However since you will have guitar lessons over the summer, why not take up the zhongruan?

To a seasoned guitar player tranfering to the zhonguan would be easy, though you will have to understand jianpo if you want to play Chinese tunes.

Ed

[davidmdahl]

Welcome to the forum, kikookua. The choice of an instrument is certainly a personal one, although opportunity is an important factor as well. I highly recommend getting a good teacher for whatever you decide to study, at least if you want to go very far with it. The popular Chinese instruments include guzheng, erhu, and dizi. For Vietnamese music, there is dan tranh, dan bau, and sao (flute). I think that for Korean music, the zithers are most popular as well, like the kayageum. Probably their flute is popular as well. Popularity is going to be related to the depth of the music you can play on it and availability of teachers.

Not very many traditional instruments work well with more than the culture they come from, so it is hard to play Chinese music on a Vietnamese instrument, for example. However, skills on one flute will be useful on the others, and likewise with the fiddles. The problem I have had though is that the musics from China, Korea, and Vietnam are all very different from each other, and it is very hard to adjust. I wanted to learn to play Vietnamese music on a dan nhi, but with no teachers in my area, I decided to learn erhu instead, and then apply the same techniques to dan nhi. Unfortunately, I have Chinese in my fingers now, and it is hard for me to sound Vietnamese on dan nhi.

Whatever you decide to study, I hope you enjoy the process.

Best wishes,

David

[kikookua]

Thank you. Yeah, I've played Korean percussion. It's really different. For Korean Music the percussion and gayageum (kayageum) are most popular. To EDcat, I will play guitar, but I haven't yet. If I can't switch that's fine too. Definitely I just want to try to connect to my roots (Korean), but my sister is Chinese, so I'm definitely leaning towards Erhu more. Thank you so much. I will definitely learn jianpo. I'm so jealous of that system; Korean music doesn't transcribe well in Western Notation, but there is no good system for writing it down. Everything is learned by memory.