[3] The instrument is held vertically, with its soundbox on the player's lap, and its strings are tuned in pairs.

The bow, usually made of horsetail hair, is grouped into two strands to enable both pairs of strings to sound at the same time.

It is also used as an accompanying instrument in various Chinese narrative genres, including Beijing dagu, plum blossom dagu, Xihe Dagu, Tianjin new tunes, Shandong qin shu, Northeast dagu, Hubei song, Shaoxing lianhua luo, Shanxi er ren, Inner Mongolia er ren, northeast dance duet, lucky play, Beijing opera derived drama from ballads, Hebei pi ying (shadow theater), and Henan erjiaxian traditional entertainment involving talking, singing, and drama.

Similar instruments include the Mongolian dörvön chikhtei khuur (four eared fiddle) and the Tuvan byzaanchy.

In China, dörbön chikhtei khuur (Chinese: 胡兀尔 or 都日奔齐和胡尔) is considered an alias of sihu.