Dilettante
A person who pursues music for pleasure rather than as a profession; derived from the Italian dilettare (to delight).
What it means
Dilettante originally denoted a person who devoted themselves to music out of enjoyment and love of the art, without practicing it professionally. The word derives from the Italian dilettare, "to delight," and in the eighteenth century was a neutral, often even respectful term for educated music lovers who made music for pleasure, as distinct from the professional musician, who earned a living from it.
Over the course of the nineteenth century the meaning shifted toward the derogatory: dilettante increasingly came to imply a lack of training, superficial engagement, and amateurish skill. This negative shade remains common in everyday usage today, though from a historical perspective it does not apply uniformly to everyone who once carried the title.
Musical use
In the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, many middle-class and aristocratic music lovers wore this title with pride. Domestic music-making circles, private concerts, and so-called dilettante concerts shaped the musical life of the period considerably, often alongside and interacting with professional concert life. Some of these dilettantes achieved considerable skill and helped spread works that would otherwise have reached only a few listeners.
The dilettante should be distinguished from the professional musician, who earns a living from music, and from the more common, more neutral modern term amateur musician, which no longer carries the older, derogatory undertone of the word dilettante.