Gehu (Bass full string fiddle)

The gehu was developed from erhu in the 1950s in response to the needs of the modern Chinese orchestra fro a bass bowed instrument. It has a horizontal round tubular resonating chamber, whose later variant is a large square box with curved sides. The modern design was inspired by an old gramophone pick -up. Kishibe Shigeo, a Japanese musicologist, spoke highly of that. As he put it, the type is a hybrid out of Eastern and Western cultures, yet the original tone quality of the huqin (barbarian fiddle) still remains.

The gehu with a deep and mellow tone, is mainly used in ensembles. Its four strings are tuned in fifths. Of the several sizes conceived on the same principles, the da gehu (large bass reformed hu) and zhong gehu (alto reformed hu) have proved successful. Since 1960s a resonance drum within the chamber, which has produced a penetrating tone quality in its high register. Recent years, there are many different designed bass instruments used in minorities' ensembles like Inner Mongolian bass matouqin, la ruan (bass bowed ruan) and lapa (bass bowed pipa) etc.

Tuning: C-g-d-a
Range: c-e2