• Dance music, more popularly called "DJ music", is mostly played at nightclubs, parties, weddings and other celebrations. It is more popular among youths. It is mostly based on Indian movie music as well as Indian pop music, both of which tend to borrow and modernise the classical and folk-dance songs with modern instruments and other innovations.

• The biggest form of Indian popular music is filmi, or songs from Indian films, it makes up 72% of the music sales in India. The film industry of India supported music by according reverence to classical music while utilising the western orchestration to support Indian melodies. Music composers, like R. D. Burman, Shankar Jaikishan, S. D. Burman, Laxmikant–Pyarelal, Madan Mohan, Bhupen Hazarika, Naushad Ali, O. P. Nayyar, Hemant Kumar, C. Ramchandra, Salil Chowdhury, Kalyanji Anandji, Ilaiyaraaja, A. R. Rahman, Jatin–Lalit, Anu Malik, Nadeem-Shravan, Harris Jayaraj, Himesh Reshammiya, Vidyasagar, Shankar–Ehsaan–Loy, Salim–Sulaiman, Pritam, M.S. Viswanathan, K. V. Mahadevan, Ghantasala and S. D. Batish employed the principles of harmony while retaining classical and folk flavor. Reputed names in the domain of Indian classical music like Ravi Shankar, Vilayat Khan, Ali Akbar Khan and Ram Narayan have also composed music for films.

• Traditionally, in Indian films, the voice for the songs is not provided by the actors, they are provided by the professional playback singers, to sound more developed, melodious and soulful, while actors lipsynch on the screen. In the past, only a handful of singers provided the voice in films. These include Kishore Kumar, K. J. Yesudas, Mohammed Rafi, Mukesh, S.P. Balasubrahmanyam, T.M. Soundararajan, Hemant Kumar, Manna Dey, P. Susheela, Lata Mangeshkar, Asha Bhonsle, K.S. Chitra, Geeta Dutt, S. Janaki, Shamshad Begum, Suraiya, Noorjahan and Suman Kalyanpur. Recent playback singers include Udit Narayan, Kumar Sanu, Kailash Kher, Alisha Chinai, KK, Shaan, SPB Charan, Madhushree, Shreya Ghoshal, Nihira Joshi, Kavita Krishnamurthy, Hariharan (singer), Ilaiyaraaja, A.R. Rahman, Sonu Nigam, Sukhwinder Singh, Kunal Ganjawala, Anu Malik, Sunidhi Chauhan, Anushka Manchanda, Raja Hasan, Arijit Singh and Alka Yagnik. Rock bands like Indus Creed, Indian Ocean, Silk Route and Euphoria have gained mass appeal with the advent of cable music television.

• Indian pop music is based on an amalgamation of Indian folk and classical music, and modern beats from different parts of the world. Pop music really started in the South Asian region with the playback singer Ahmed Rushdi's song ‘Ko Ko Korina’ in 1966, then by Kishore Kumar in the early 1970s.

• After that, much of Indian Pop music comes from the Indian Film Industry, and until the 1990s, few singers like Usha Uthup, Sharon Prabhakar, and Peenaz Masani outside it were popular. Since then, pop singers in the latter group have included Daler Mehndi, Baba Sehgal, Alisha Chinai, KK, Shantanu Mukherjee a.k.a. Shaan, Sagarika, Colonial Cousins (Hariharan, Lesle Lewis), Lucky Ali, and Sonu Nigam, and music composers like Zila Khan or Jawahar Wattal, who made top selling albums with, Daler Mehndi, Shubha Mudgal, Baba Sehgal, Shweta Shetty and Hans Raj Hans. Besides those listed above, popular Indi-pop singers include Sanam (Band), Gurdas Maan, Sukhwinder Singh, Papon, Zubeen Garg, Raghav Sachar Rageshwari, Vandana Vishwas, Devika Chawla, Bombay Vikings, Asha Bhosle, Sunidhi Chauhan, Anushka Manchanda, Bombay Rockers, Anu Malik, Jazzy B, Malkit Singh, Raghav, Jay Sean, Juggy D, Rishi Rich, Udit Swaraj, Sheila Chandra, Bally Sagoo, Punjabi MC, Beno, Bhangra Knights, Mehnaz, Sanober and Vaishali Samant.

• Recently, Indian pop has taken an interesting turn with the "remixing" of songs from past Indian movie songs, new beats being added to them.

• Patriotic feelings have been instigated within Indians through music since the era of the freedom struggle. Jana Gana Mana, the national anthem of India by Rabindranath Tagore, is largely credited for uniting India through music and Vande Mataram by Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay as the national song of India. Patriotic songs were also written in many regional languages such as Biswo Bizoyi No Zuwan in Assamese. Post-independence songs such as Aye mere watan ke logo, Mile Sur Mera Tumhara, Ab Tumhare Hawale Watan Saathiyo, Maa Tujhe Salaam by A.R. Rahman have been responsible for consolidating feelings of national integration and unity in diversity.

• Western world's music has been adopted in India, by creating fusion music in India which in turn have enriched and created global genres of western music.

• Goa trance, an electronic music style that originated during the late 1980s in Goa in India, has funky, drone-like basslines, similar to the techno minimalism of 21st century psytrance. Psychedelic trance developed from Goa trance. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, Goa became popular as a hippie capital, which resulted in evolution of Goa trance throughout the 1980s by mixing the spiritual culture of India with western musical elements of industrial music, new beat and electronic body music (EBM), and the actual Goa trance style became established by the early 1990s.

• Jazz in India was first performed regularly in the metropoles Calcutta and Bombay in the early or middle 1920s. From the 1930s to the 1950s is called as the golden age of jazz in India, when jazz musicians like Leon Abbey, Crickett Smith, Creighton Thompson, Ken Mac, Roy Butler, Teddy Weatherford (who recorded with Louis Armstrong), and Rudy Jackson who toured India to avoid the racial discrimination they faced in the United States. In the 1930s, jazz musicians played in the nightclubs of Bombay, such as at the Taj Mahal hotel ballroom, many of these musicians were Goans most whom also worked in the Bollywood film industry and were responsible for the introduction of genres like jazz and swing to Hindi film music.

• Indian blues is less prevalent in India than jazz. Interest in the blues in India has only been incidental due to the shared ancestry with jazz.

• The rock music scene in India is small compared to the filmi or fusion musicality scenes. Rock music in India has its origins in the 1960s when international stars such as the Beatles visited India and brought their music with them. These artists' collaboration with Indian musicians such as Ravi Shankar and Zakir Hussain have led to the development of raga rock. International shortwave radio stations such as The Voice of America, BBC, and Radio Ceylon played a major part in bringing Western pop, folk, and rock music to the masses. Indian rock bands began to gain prominence only much later, around the late 1980s.

• It was around this time that the rock band Indus Creed formerly known as The Rock Machine got itself noticed on the international stage with hits like Rock N Roll Renegade. Other bands quickly followed. With the introduction of MTV in the early 1990s, Indians began to be exposed to various forms of rock such as grunge and speed metal, impacting the national scene. The cities of the North Eastern Region, mainly Guwahati and Shillong, Kolkata, Delhi, Mumbai and Bangalore have emerged as major melting pots for rock and metal enthusiasts. Bangalore has been the hub for rock and metal movement in India. Some prominent bands include Nicotine, Voodoo Child, Indian Ocean, Kryptos, Thermal and the quarter indian rock acts Quarter, Demonic Resurrection, Motherjane, Avial, Bloodywood and Parikrama. Rock-specific labels such as DogmaTone Records and Eastern Fare Music Foundation have since emerged, supporting Indian rock acts.

• From Central India, Nicotine, an Indore-based metal band, has been credited with pioneering metal music in the region.

• Raga rock is rock or pop music with a heavy Indian influence, either in its construction, its timbre, or its use of instrumentation, such as the sitar and tabla. Raga and other forms of classical Indian music began to influence many rock groups during the 1960s; most famously the Beatles. The first traces of "raga rock" can be heard on songs such as "See My Friends" by the Kinks and the Yardbirds' "Heart Full of Soul", released the previous month, featured a sitar-like riff by guitarist Jeff Beck. The Beatles song "Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)", which first appeared on the band's 1965 album Rubber Soul, was the first western pop song to actually incorporate the sitar (played by lead guitarist George Harrison). The Byrds' March 1966 single "Eight Miles High" and its B-side "Why" were also influential in originating the musical subgenre. Indeed, the term "raga rock" was coined by The Byrds' publicist in the press releases for the single and was first used in print by journalist Sally Kempton in her review of "Eight Miles High" for The Village Voice. George Harrison's interest in Indian music, popularised the genre in the mid-1960s with songs such as "Love You To", "Tomorrow Never Knows" (credited to Lennon-McCartney), "Within You Without You" and "The Inner Light". The rock acts of the sixties both in turn influenced British and American groups and Indian acts to develop a later form of Indian rock.

• Despite more than a century of exposure to Western classical music and two centuries of British colonialism, classical music in India has never gained significant popularity.

• However, Western classical music education has improved with the help of certain institutions in India, including KM Music Conservatory (founded by Oscar-winning Composer A.R. Rahman), Calcutta School of Music, Eastern Fare Music Foundation, in 1930, Mehli Mehta set up the Bombay Symphony Orchestra. His son Zubin Mehta has enjoyed a long international conducting career. The Bombay Chamber Orchestra (BCO) was founded in 1962. Delhi School of Music, Delhi Music Academy, Guitar monk and others supporting Western classical music. In 2006, the Symphony Orchestra of India was founded, housed at the NCPA in Mumbai. It is today the only professional symphony orchestra in India and presents two concert seasons per year, with world-renowned conductors and soloists.