Gehu's name is made up of two Chinese characters. "Ge" meaning revolutionary, and "Hu" which is derived from "Huqin" the generic term for all Chinese bowed string instruments.

The Gehu comes in two sizes, the Da-Gehu (large) and the Diyin Gehu (bass). In a Chinese orchestra, they take the same roles as the cello and double bass in a Western symphony orchestra. The Da-Gehu is a hybrid of the cello and the hu. It has four strings. The tuning, bowing, fingering and other string techniques are the same as those for the cello. Because the Gehu uses a banjo-like membrane as the soundboard, the resulting sound is however unlike the cello. The instrument's volume and tone quality depends upon the snakeskin parchment that is attached to the body of the instrument. The Diyin Gehu tunes and plays like the double bass, but the tone color differs from that of the double bass.