Drone music

Drone music is a genre built on sustained, continuous tones that hold in place rather than moving through a strong melody or beat. Sometimes called sustained-tone or drone-based music, it grew out of 20th-century minimalist composition and emphasizes texture and slow, subtle change over time instead of rhythm, making it a key influence on modern ambient and experimental music.

No, drone music is not the same as music for drone footage, though the shared name causes real confusion. This drone music genre refers to a style built on sustained tones, unrelated to camera drones. If you're instead looking for background music to soundtrack aerial drone footage, any calm, cinematic, or ambient track can work; the genre name doesn't need to match your subject matter.

Drone is a subgenre of ambient music, built specifically around sustained tones with little to no rhythmic or melodic movement. Ambient music is the broader genre: it covers a wider range of moods and structures, including melodic and rhythmic elements, while drone strips things down to pure tone and texture for a more minimal, immersive backdrop.

The wider drone genre spans a broad range, from calm, synth-driven sustained tones to heavier, distorted-guitar styles often called drone metal. Within Epidemic Sound's own catalog, drone splits into two main moods:

• Peaceful, Relaxing, and Dreamy: calm and synth-driven, suited to mindfulness or reflective content
• Dark, Suspense, and Mysterious: tension-building, suited to horror, thriller, and cinematic use, closely related to Dark Ambient

So whether drone feels relaxing or unsettling really depends on the track. For something even more synth-driven, Epidemic Sound's Electronic genre is worth exploring alongside it.

No. Drone tracks are copyrighted just like any other music, regardless of how minimal or ambient they sound. Downloading or using a drone track without a proper license carries the same copyright risk as any other genre. To use drone music safely in monetized or public content, you need a valid license, such as an Epidemic Sound subscription.

You can find and download royalty-free drone music through Epidemic Sound, a subscription-based music licensing platform with more than 55,000 tracks. Tracks you publish while your subscription is active stay cleared for use, even after you cancel later.