play piano v.s. play the piano [duplicate]

Question

I've heard that 'play piano' is OK in American usage. Is that true? What I learned so far is 'play the piano'. As long as it comes to the instruments, we usually "play the (instrument)". Is that correct?

Answer 1

This is really quite complex (and not a little odd). If someone is asked whether they play a musical instrument they will say (even if they own a houseful of guitars) "I play the guitar" as though all the guitars in the world were, somehow, one instrument.

However if someone says to a band member "What do you do in your band?" They will usually say "I play guitar" even if there is only one guitarist in the band and they play only one instrument at any given gig.

Not only that but if the same person takes one of his guitars into a street and busks a member of the public might report it to someone else as "I saw a guy playing a guitar in the street today".

The above examples show the use of the definite article, the indefinite article and no article at all. The strange thing is that the usages have little or no relationship to the number of physical instruments actually played. This is unlike other activities such as truck driving where if anyone said "I drive the truck" this would imply that they worked for a company with only one truck and that they do nothing but drive it.

If the musician is a professional and they are being asked what they do for a living they will say "I'm a guitarist" which is equivalent to someone who drives a truck saying "I'm a truck driver".