Dance music is music composed specifically to facilitate or accompany dancing. It can be either a whole musical piece or part of a larger musical arrangement. In terms of performance, the major categories are live dance music and recorded dance music.

Folk dance music is music accompanying traditional dance and may be contrasted with historical/classical, and popular/commercial dance music. An example of folk dance music in the United States is the old-time music played at square dances and contra dances. Brazilian dance music includes Samba, Pagode, and Forró.

While there exist attestations of the combination of dance and music in ancient times (for example Ancient Greek vases sometimes show dancers accompanied by musicians), the earliest Western dance music that we can still play with a degree of certainty are the surviving medieval dances such as carols and the Estampie. The earliest of these surviving dances are almost as old as Western staff-based music notation.

The Renaissance dance music was written for instruments such as the lute, viol, tabor, pipe, and the sackbut.