Words for Someone Who Loves Music

• Music Aficionado
• Melomaniac
• Melophile
• Musicophile
• Music-lover
• Fanatic
• Music nut
• Audiophile
• Music junkie
• Music enthusiast

Moreover, we’ll show you how to use each of these terms in some helpful example sentences.

Music Aficionado

If you’re wondering how to describe a person who has a great appreciation of music, the most straightforward phrase is “music aficionado.”

According to Merriam-Webster, an “aficionado” is “a person who likes, knows about, and appreciates a usually fervently pursued interest or activity.”

Therefore, a “music aficionado” is someone who pursues music as an activity and knows a lot about it. They could be a musician who plays one or multiple instruments, a composer, or a lyricist who likes to write songs of their own.

However, a “music aficionado” may also just listen to music a lot. As a result, they will often have a lot of knowledge about certain genres, bands, or artists of note.

They could also be all these things at once!

Therefore, let’s see a couple of example sentences making use of this phrase:

Jake is a self-proclaimed music aficionado, and he used his life savings to build a recording studio in his back garden.

She calls herself a music aficionado, but I would say she is nothing short of a prodigy.

Melomaniac

Merriam-Webster defines a “melomaniac” as “an individual exhibiting melomania.” Moreover, it defines “melomania” as “an inordinate liking for music or melody: excessive or abnormal attraction to music.”

Therefore, a “melomaniac” is more extreme than a music aficionado. They do not simply enjoy and ardently pursue music. Instead, they have an obsessive relationship with it. Thus, this term essentially describes someone who is addicted to music.

You can call someone a “melomaniac” when their love of music is bordering on excessive and abnormal. Therefore, this phrase can be used in a somewhat critical way, as opposed to a more descriptive phrase like “music aficionado.”

Moreover, this term will usually come across as exaggerative since it’s very rare to find a person who has an out-of-control addiction to music.

Finally, have a look at the examples sentences below:

Charles was a notorious melomaniac, and he frequented every club and bar in his area to get a look at whatever local talent was playing there each night.

I would describe myself as a complete melomaniac; I spend most of my time finding new stuff to listen to.

Melophile

According to WordSense Dictionary, a “melophile” is “one who loves music.” Moreover, you could also use this word to describe someone who loves singing.

The background to this term is fairly self-explanatory; it is the combination of the Greek word “philo” meaning “love of” and “mélos” meaning “melody” or “song.”

This term is somewhere in between the obsessive nature of a “melomaniac” and the more casual enjoyment of music from a “music aficionado.”

It is not a popular phrase and can’t be found in most English dictionaries. However, it seems to perfectly encapsulate someone who simply loves to listen to music, so we think it’s worth popularizing this term!

If you are a lover of music who is neither obsessive nor an “aficionado” per se, perhaps you are a “melophile”!

Check out the examples below to see this term in action:

I’ve always been a melophile, and I recently started taking saxophone lessons.

We should invite Ash to our quiz team; she’s a complete melophile and will know all the music-related questions.