> A) 日曜日にはどんなことをしていますか。  
>  What sort of things do you do on Sundays?  
>  音楽を聞く **とか** 、本を読むとかしています。  
>  I do things like listen to music and read books.
>
> B) ニューヨークではどんなことをしましたか。  
>  What sort of things did you do in New York?  
>  *ミュージカルを見る **とか** 美術館に行くとかしました。  
>  I did things like watching musicals and going to museums.

According to "A Dictionary of Basic Japanese Grammar" response A) is correct
but response B) is wrong. I should use たり instead.

This book, and other references, vaguely talk about 'specific' versus
'general' situations to decide which form to use, but I can't understand what
their talking about. Both A) and B) look like the same usage to me. I can't
understand why B) is wrong.

How do I know when to use とか and when to use たり?
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grammar
とか～とかする versus たり～たりする
Your doubt is no wonder to me. I agree with you.  
To me, 音楽を聞くとか、本を読むとかしています is just as good as ミュージカルを見るとか美術館に行くとかしました.

とか basically sounds more informal than ～し **たり** ～し **たり** する.

If they are 音楽を聞い **たり** 本を読ん **だり** しています and ミュージカルを見 **たり** 美術館へ行っ **たり**
しました, they sound more decent.
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This is perhaps a question best left answered by a native speaker. While I
will nevertheless give it a try, I won't try to answer the question more
generally, but rather just specifically to the two sentences you provided.

Consider the first question,

> A)  
>  日曜日にはどんなことをしていますか。  
>  What sort of things do you do on Sundays?  
>  音楽を聞くとか、本を読むとかしています。  
>  I do things like listen to music and read books.

This is definitely a general question about your habits, not a one time
incident. Though I suspect that here using the たり..たり..する construct might be
permissible:

> 音楽を聞いたり、本を読んだりしています。

However, situation B is rather different. It's asking about a particular trip
when you went to New York.

> B)  
>  ニューヨークではどんなことをしましたか。  
>  What sort of things did you do in New York?  
>  *ミュージカルを見るとか美術館に行くとかしました。  
>  I did things like watching musicals and going to museums.

If you answered this way, I have a feeling that it's so not much
_ungrammatical_ as it is _perplexing_. The person asking the question would be
right to wonder: "How is it they don't know what they did on their trip?"

To answer as:

> ニューヨークではミュージカルを見たり美術館に行ったりしました。

This sounds much more definite.

To my ears, the ...とか...とかする construct is listing possibilities, not concrete
occurrences whereas ...たり...たりする has a more definite and concrete feel. If
you're enumerating examples of things you know you did or (and here's where
I'm hazarding a guess) things you're definitely planning to do, then the
...たり...たりする is more appropriate.

So for example, I suspect that both of the following situations below are
acceptable with only a subtle difference in meaning.

> Person A: 来週ニューヨークに行くんですよね。どういうことするんですか。  
>  Person B: ミュージカルを見るとか美術館に行くとかするかなと思ってます。

Or,

> Person B: ミュージカルを見たり美術館に行ったりするつもりです。

The difference between these being, that in the first case, you're merely
listing possibilities. If you don't do one of the things mentioned, no big
deal, it wasn't a definite thing. But I think in the second instance, if you
didn't go to any museums, then your friend might be right to ask you on your
return from New York, "what happened? Why weren't you able to visit museums?"
(That's of course assuming that they remember perfectly word for word what you
said and how you said it.)

So, that's my gut feel about it. I'd love to hear from the native speakers
what they think. Of course, feel free to downvote if I've got this completely
wrong, but at least point out where I'm getting it wrong.
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