Ground Bass

Listen to the most famous Ground Bass in Classical Music by the Baroque Composer Johann Pachelbel. "Canon" in D or also known as "Pachelbel's Canon"

Listen to another Ground this time by J.S. Bach from his "Passacaglia" in C minor"

A motive, phrase, or theme in the bass repeated again and again as the basis for a composition. A basso continuo is when a bass instrument that very often plays this bass line which is reinforced with "continuous" chords or connecting harmonies played by a harpsichord. Most Ground Bass forms in the Baroque period had florid polyphony above the steady Ground. Certainly that is the case in both "Canon in D" as well as the "Passacaglia" in C minor.