to make music in praise of God, whether by singing or by playing an instrument.
This is Israel's main word for worship set to music. It is not music for its own sake: in the Bible the one being praised is almost always God, and the setting is worship. The word reaches from a single voice lifted in private thanks to a whole congregation breaking into song.
The word covers both halves of music at once, the singing and the playing, and the two are usually doing the same job. A psalm will often say in one breath that the worshiper will sing to God and strike up the harp, so the line between voice and instrument is deliberately blurred. That is why a single English word rarely fits: translators reach for sing, sing praises, make music, or play, depending on whether a harp or a voice is in view.
Because it lives almost entirely in the book of Psalms, the word carries the flavor of public, festive, glad worship. To make music in this sense is to give God his due in the one language a worshiping community has always shared.