When he was nine years old he received a broken fiddle from his primary school music teacher. The fiddle couldn't be repaired, so the young Tan plucked it like a three-stringed sanxian.
九歲時，譚盾從小學音樂老師那裡得來了一把破舊的小提琴，由於無法修理，他就把小提琴拿來當三弦撥彈。