N
- Na trapeza - Greek-Turkish slow songs
- Nagauta - Japanese style of shamisen-playing
- Naghmehs
- Naked funk
- Nangma - Tibetan dance music
- Nanguan - Taiwanese instrumental music
- Narcocorrido
- Narodni muzika - Serbian folk music
- Nasheed - a capella music closely related with Islamic revival in the 20th century
- Nashville Sound
- Native American gospel
- Nederpop
- Néo kýma
- Neomelodici - modern Neapolitan pop songs
- Neo-classicism
- Neo-ska
- Neo-swing
- Nerdcore hiphop
- Neue Deutsche Welle
- Neue Volksmusik
- New Age
- New Instrumental
- New Jack Swing (New Jack R&B, Swingbeat)
- New Orleans blues
- New Orleans contemporary brass band
- New Orleans jazz
- New Jack R&B (New Jack Swing, Swingbeat)
- New Romantic
- New rumba
- New school hip hop
- New Taiwanese Song - modern Taiwanese pop music which combines ballads, rock and roll and hip hop
- New Wave bhangra (Fusion bhangra)
- New Wave of British heavy metal (NWOBHM) - mid- to late 1970s heavy metal coming out of the United Kingdom
- New Wave - melodious pop outgrowth of arty punk rock, also used as description of an emerging sound in any genre (e.g. Alpine New Wave)
- New York blues
- Newbeat
- Newgrass - progressive bluegrass
- Nganja
- Nhac dan toc cai bien - modernized forms of Vietnamese folk music which arose in the 1950s
- Nhac tai tu - Vietnamese chamber music which accompanies cai luong
- Nha Nac
- Nisiótika - folk songs of the Greek islands
- No Wave
- Noh - highly-stylized Japanese theater and music style
- Noise music
- Noise pop
- Noise rock
- Nongak - Korean folk music played by 20-30 performers on different kinds of percussion instruments
- Norae Undong - Korean rock music with socially aware lyrics
- Nortec (electronic style from Tijuana, Mexico)
- Norteño (Tex-Mex) - Modernized corridos pop music of Mexico
- Northern harmony
- Northumbrian smallpipe music
- Northern soul
- Nota
- Nova canção - popular 1950s and 60s fado in Portugal and folk-based singer-songwriters in Spain
- Novokomponovana narodna muzika - modernized Serbian folk music
- Nu breaks
- Nu jazz
- Nu metal
- Nu-NRG
- Nu soul (neo soul)
- Nueva canción - Chilean pop-folk music which influenced by native Chilean and Bolivian forms
- Nyingmapa chanting - form of highly rhythmic and elaborate Tibetan Buddhist chanting
O
- Oi
- Old school hip hop
- Old time country
- Old-time
- Olonkho - Yakut epic songs
- Oltului
- Omutibo
- Ondo
- On ikki muqam - Uighur classical suite in 12 parts
- Oom pah band
- Opera
- Oratorical calypso
- Oratorio
- Orchestra
- Orchestre
- Organic ambient
- Organic house
- Organum
- Oriental Foxtrot
- Oriental metal
- Orovela - eastern Georgian work songs
- Orquestas Tejanas
- Ottava rima
- Outlaw country
- Outsider music
- Özgün
- Ozwodna
P
- P-Funk
- Padams
- Paisley Underground
- Palm wine
- Palos
- Panambih - tembang sunda that uses metered poetry
- Panchai baja - Nepalese wedding music
- P'ansori - Korean folk music played by a singer and a drummer
- Parisian soukous
- Parranda - Afro-Venezuelan form of music
- Payada de contrapunto
- Pambiche (Merengue estilo yanqui)
- Pan music
- Paranda - Garifuna music of Belize
- Parang
- Partido alto
- El pasacalle
- Paseo
- Pasillo
- Pellimanni music - Finnish folk dance music
- Pennywhistle jive
- Peroveta anedia
- Petenera
- Petro
- Peyote Song - a mixture of gospel and traditional Native American music
- Philadelphia soul - soft 1970s soul that came out of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
- Phleng luk tung
- Piano blues
- Piedmont blues
- Pinoy rock - rock and roll sung in Tagalog from the Philippines
- Pinpeat orchestra
- Piphat - ancient form of Thai classical musical ensemble
- Pirekaus - traditional love songs of the Purépecha of Mexico
- Pisiq - Greenlandic folk song
- Piyyutim
- Plachi - melancholic Russian folk songs
- Plainchant (Gregorian chant)
- Plena
- Pleng phua cheewit - Thai protest rock
- Pleng Thai sakorn - a Thai interpretation of Western classical music
- Poco-poco - Indonesian modern music which fuses disco with eastern Indonesian dance music
- Polihet
- Polka
- Polo
- Polonaise
- Pols - Danish fiddle and accordion dance music
- Polska
- Pop-makossa
- Pop melayu - Malay pop music with dangdut overlay
- Pop mop - Mongolian pop music
- Pop music
- Pop punk
- Pop rai
- Pop sunda - Sundanese mixture of gamelan degung and pop music structures
- Popular music
- Porro - Colombian big band music
- Post-minimalism
- Post punk
- Post-rock
- Post-romanticism
- Power electronics
- Power metal
- Power noise (or rhythmic noise)
- Power pop
- Pow-wow - Native American dance music
- Ppongtchak - Korean pop music developed during the Japanese occupation
- Praise song
- Program symphony
- Progressive electronic music
- Progressive house
- Progressive metal
- Progressive bluegrass
- Progressive rock
- Progressive trance
- Psychedelic music
- Psychedelic trance
- Psychobilly
- Psych-pop
- Psy-trance
- Punjabi thumri - a type of thumri from Punjab
- Punk rock
- Punta
- Punta rock - 1970s Belizean music
Q
- Quan ho - Vietnamese vocal music which originated in the Red River Delta
- Qasidah - Epic religious poetry accompanied by percussion and chanting
- Qasidah modern - Qasidah updated for mainstream audiences
- Qawwali - Sufi religious music since updated for mainstream audiences, originally developed in Pakistan
- Quadrille
- Queercore
- Quiet Storm
R
- Rada
- Raga rock - Swiss soul, rock and Indian music fusion
- Ragas
- Raggamuffin (Ragga)
- Ragga-chutney
- Ragga-soca
- Ragga-zouk - a fusion of reggae, dub music and zouk
- Ragtime
- Rai - Algerian folk music now developed into a popular style
- Rake-and-scrape - Bahamanian instrumental music
- Ramkbach
- Ramvong
- Ranchera - pop mariachi from 1950s film soundtracks
- Rap (hip hop)
- Rap dogba
- Rap metal
- Rapcore
- Rapso
- Rara
- Rare groove
- Rasiya
- Rateliai
- Rave
- Rebita
- Reel
- Reggae
- Reggae highlife
- Reggaeton
- Reinlender
- Rekilaulu - Finnish rhyming sleigh songs
- Rembetiko
- Renaissance music
- Rhapsody
- Rhyming spiritual - Bahamanian hymns
- Rhythm and blues (R&B)
- Rhythmic noise (or power noise)
- Ricercar
- Rímur - Icelandic heroic epic songs
- Ring Bang - the Barbadian sound of soca
- Riot grrl
- Rock
- Rock opera
- Rock and roll
- Rock en espanol
- Rock nacional - Argentinian rock
- Rockabilly
- Rocksteady
- Rococo
- Rodeo music
- Rokon fada
- Romantic period in music
- Romeras
- Rondeaux
- Ronggeng - a folk music from Malacca, Malaysia
- Roots reggae
- Roots rock
- Roots rock reggae
- Ruem trosh - Cambodian traditional music
- Rumba
- Rumba gitana - French Gypsy music
- Runddan
- Runolaulu - Finnish folk songs
- Runo-song - Estonian folk music