Aristoxenus was the son of a musician. He was born in Tarentum, probably a little before the middle of the fourth century, while the great Tarentine philosopher, statesman, mathematician and musicologist Archytas was still alive. Aristoxenus will have heard much about him, though he can hardly have known him personally. We are told that he studied music and philosophy with his father, and later with distinguished Pythagoreans and others in mainland Greece. Some time after 330 he came to Athens and joined the school of Aristotle. To judge by the evident Aristotelian influence in his writings, this was an important turning-point in his career. By the time of Aristotle's death in 322 b.c. Aristoxenus was a figure of some distinction in the Lyceum and hoped to follow him as its head. The rudeness of his remarks about Aristotle when he learned that the school had been bequeathed to Theophrastus was startling enough to be remembered, and passed into the biographical tradition.

It seems unlikely that Aristoxenus stayed in the Lyceum under Theophrastus' presidency, but he may not have left Athens. We do not know where he went or how long he lived. The bulk of the El. Harm., however, was certainly written later, and any pique he had felt against Aristotle must have passed. His only explicit remarks about his teacher in that work compare him favourably with Plato, and the treatise is thoroughly Aristotelian in conception.