A style of music associated with some New Age beliefs. It has its basis in the work of various 1960s European and American electronic and acoustic musicians and is generally characterisied as being melodic and primarily instrumental in nature.

A large percentage of music described as new age is electronic and instrumental, frequently relying on long sequencer-based runs. Vocal arrangements and acoustic instruments are less common. Recordings or samples of naturally occurring sounds are sometimes used.

These characteristics also apply to other sub-genres of ambient music, with the consequence that the term was often used during the 1980s as a catch-all marketing term applied to many different styles of non-mainstream instrumental music. Some consider new age music to be a branch of electronic music, while others say that it is defined more by the feeling it produces rather than the devices used in its creation. Either way, there is certainly a significant overlap of sectors of new age music, electronic music (or electronica), ambient music and world music.