Learn Chinese -Learn Mandarin : the right word to say about playing musical instruments in Chinese: musical instrument vocabulary and chui1 吹, la1 拉, qiao1 敲, da3 打 and tan2 弹. Also the history of Chinese musical instruments and complete Chinese musical terms.

In English you can use the verb “play” for any musical instruments : piano, cello, violin, or clarinet. You can say “I love to play piano, and I love to play clarinet too.” However, in Chinese, there are quite a few verbs you need to know when you want to express the meaning of playing on the particular musical instrument.

彈 [弹] (tan2) is used for the piano (鋼琴 [钢琴] gang1 qin2), and string instruments such as the guitar (吉他 ji2 ta1). Tan2 means to pluck, spring, leap, shoot , fluff,or flick. In ancient China, there were some special instruments called 琵琶 （pi2 pa2， lute） and 古筝 （gu3 zheng1， zither）; both of these instruments, we should use tan2.

拉 (la1) is used for bowed instruments such as violin (小提琴 xiao3 ti2 qin2), viola (中提琴 zhong1 ti2 qin2) and cello (大提琴 da4 ti2 qin2). La1 means to pull or drag. 二胡 Er2 hu2 is a traditional Chinese musical instrument that we have to use the verb la1 — la1 er4 hu2.

吹 (chui1) is used for wind instruments such as the 笛 di2 (flute), 簫 xiao1 (bamboo flute) and clarinet (單簧管 [单簧管] dan1 huang2 guan3). Chui1 means to blow. For trumpet (喇叭 la3 ba1), saxophone (萨克斯风 sa4 ke4 si1 feng1), French horn (法国号 fa4 guo2 hao4), or the traditional Chinese sheng1 笙, we all have to use 吹 chui1.

打 (da3) is used for the drums (鼓 gǔ) and other percussion. 打da3 means to beat, strike, and to hit. As well as meaning to play the drum, 打鼓 (da3 ​gu3) also means to be nervous; like your heart keeps beating loud when you are getting nervous.

敲 （qiao1) is used for the following musical instruments: gong (锣 luo2），triangle (三角铁 san1 jiao3 tie3). 敲 qiao1 means to knock or to strike.

For complete Chinese music terms — characters, pinyin, and definition, click http://www.chinese-word.com/chinese/z_music.html

The history of Chinese musical instruments