Māori music is music composed or performed by Māori, the native people of New Zealand, and includes a wide variety of folk music styles, often integrated with poetry and dance, as well as modern rock and roll, soul, reggae and hip hop.

Pre-European Māori music was predominantly sung, but researchers Hirini Melbourne and Richard Nunns have unearthed a rich tradition of blown, struck and whirled instruments.

Songs (waiata) were sung solo, in unison or at the octave. Types of song included lullabies (oriori), love songs (waitata aroha) and laments (waiata tangi).

It was traditional to end a speech with a song, but none are reported to have been composed especially for this setting or confined to it.

Some of the smaller wind instruments were also sung into, and the sound of the poi (raupo ball swung on the end of a flax cord) provided a rhythmic accompaniment to waiata poi.

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