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.

Dance music works often bear the name of the corresponding dance, e.g. waltzes, the tango, the bolero, the can-can, minuets, salsa, various kinds of jigs and the breakdown. Often it is difficult to know whether the name of the music came first or the name of the dance.

Nowadays, The term "dance music" is often used for more commercial forms of electronic music. It is also associated as any form of music is danced to, spanning genres of pop, hip-hop, house, techno, disco, electro and so on.