The erhu (pronounced “arr hoo”) is a crazy cool two-stringed instrument! Its history began more than one thousand years ago in ancient, central Asia and came to China in the 10th century.
The first Chinese character of the instrument’s name is 二 (èr, two). Some believe that that this character was used because the instrument has two strings.
Others believe that because the second character is 胡 (hú), this demonstrates that it is directly related to the Hu people from the north or west of China.
Before the 20th century, the erhu was used mostly as part of Chinese opera and story telling.
Take a listen!